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tv   Politics Public Policy Today  CSPAN  January 11, 2013 10:30pm-5:59am EST

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child advocacy communities from boys and girls clubs, the ymca, the after-school alliance. the domestic violence prevention community, they have various views with legal and justice organizations. civil rights organizations, participation in national service organizations from one club to the rotary club. youth groups, campus groups, peace groups. gun safety advocates from the brady group to the major gun safety organizations. the educators that are groping for answers, the mental health
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community including the american academy that we have been through, it is not an extensive study. but the literature that the staff has been working. much of what we already had, trying to devour. the most interesting meeting is with an interfaith group. not only the traditional mainstream protestant churches, the catholic council of bishops, but evangelicals. they are reluctant to engage in is because it is may be an
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attack on a cultural thing related to gun ownership and the like. all these groups with the muslim community, the hindu community, etc.. it was really a fascinating discussion. and then we matt with sportsmen groups that is distinct from but do not disagree with the gun owner groups. they have a different perspective that includes the blue water strategies, the outdoor industries. with a gun owners and the marines and troops, headed by a
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retired major general to fire arms and export roundtable. the independent firearms owners. there is a difference among them as well. we also met with retailers because of background checks and the like. they sell an awful lot of weapons. we met with colleagues in hollywood yesterday. the entertainment industry, as it relates to film and broadcasting. we will be meeting with technology experts. a lot could change, if every gun purchase could be fired by
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the person that purchased it. we would be unable to be fired. if that were available on every weapon sold, there is significant evidence that it may very well have curtailed what would have happened in connecticut. the young man had access to his mother's arsenal. i remember meeting with social education, and you in the video gaming industry. i come to this meeting with no judgment. you all know the judgments other people have made. we had a very productive meeting yesterday with the broadcast and film industries that have very constructive
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ideas as to how they can help. assessing the impact, if any, on behavior of certain behaviors. we are anxious to see if there is anything you can suggest to us that would hope to manage the possibility -- if we can only save one kid's life because of the consequence. we have a problem beyond the massacre is. columbine, conn., 10,000 people a year gunned down in our cities. a different motives, reasons,
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explanations. it is a real problem. one of the things that i know of no way to gather empirical data on and you all may, make an analogy to when we first started dealing with the issue of crack cocain in the early 80's, coming from the bahamas. although i was senior, i was not equal the daniel patrick moynihan that was a great mind. the front page of the newspaper. one of the mafia bosses was gunned down in a barber chair and riddled with machine gun fire.
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it made the front page of every newspaper in america. the referenced a story where an entire family were murdered execution-style. it made page 57 in the new york times. there is no measure that i am aware of to determine whether or not there is a coursing of our courts are -- culture. i do not know the answer to that question and i do not know what impact it would have.
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i wanted to tell you what we are about. at the end result is that i would be making a recommendation as a consequence of long, drawn-out hearings. there is an awful lot of research that has been lying around over the past 10 years with recommendations on having a federal weapons trafficking statute universal background checks for making more widely available mental health assistance. i would be submitting to the president on how to proceed. we get it done by then. i just wanted to fill you guys and on what it is. we had a very straightforward and productive meeting.
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[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> tomorrow on the "washington journal." two perspectives on climate change. our guests are david doniger and myron ebell. then we will talk about senators who are investigating cia sources and their role in the movie "zero dark thirty" with mark hosenball. a look at the food and drug administration's new food and safety rules. we're joined by sarah klein. live at 7:00 eastern on c-span.
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famous movies most stars leave the film capital to help sell war bonds. irene dunne, ronald coleman, all part of a contingent of 50 celebrities giving their time and talents to aid the war effort. >> what we want to look at today is how popular culture presented the war. how was the were presented at in movies from the 1940's? how was it presented in comic books? how was it presented in athletic events from the 1940's and 1930's? how was it presented and it into an alley and music from the 1940's? >> this weekend, popular culture and world war ii with randy roberts. "lectures in history" saturday night at 8:00 and 10:00 eastern
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on c-span 3. >> today jay rockefeller announced he will not seek reelection when his term ends in 2014. he is first elected to the senate in 1984. he served as the governor of west virginia from 1977 until 1985. this is about 20 minutes. >> thank you, sharon. so incredibly much. a perfect life, by far the most popular rockefeller and west virginia. -- wife, by far, the most popular rockefeller in west virginia. i will get right to them. i have decided not to run again at the conclusion of this term. not now, but in 2014. i hope each of you can
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understand that this is an entirely personal decision. it is not a political decision and it is not easy. it is simply this. as i approached 50 years of nonstop public service, precluding time with the children and sharon. i consider the ways for travel in life. there are many other ways, and i know deep within me that in
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2014, it is the right time for me to recalibrate and find a new balance. i came as an untrained social worker back in 1964. i actually begun my public service for years before that, working for the peace corps and the department of state. frankly, i was in search of a clear and powerful purpose. i wanted something that was so compelling and obsessive that it
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would fill me out completely. i did not necessarily wanted to be complicated, but i wanted it to be hard. and living in west virginia, you gave me what i wanted most. it is strong today and 10 years ago. i found my calling. it was here. it is so incredibly hard- working, never shy away from physical tasks or of the old battle. like the proud work of a coal miner with a mind for a better future. that is what i found.
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real people, skeptical of me for a long time. and truly giving. they gave me more than i ever could have given them. every day and every minute since. west virginia has my home and the people of west virginia has been my life's work. it deserves nothing less than everything you have to bring to bear, and that is what i have given it. i have been driven to make life
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better for people. it is not a slogan for me. it is the truth. there is a tremendous amount of greatness in west virginia. for 50 years, 30 in the senate, what ever could make a difference for our state and our people. i thought that the heaviest burden for those that have forgotten, there are many, that deserve better. every child deserves a fair shot in life. 15 years ago, i wrote the children's health insurance program.
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last year alone, it meant 40,000 children in west virginia and 8 million nationwide were able to see a doctor when they needed to that otherwise they would not have been able to. i also wrote the program that is providing connectivity in classrooms so that there can be a hookup to the internet. this is back in 1996. back then, 14% of our classrooms, and now it is 92%. it has been a world -- [applause] a world of difference for opportunities and curiosity that our children and families have. i pushed hard to establish a
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bedrock of financial support, not only for the middle class, but also for the working poor of this day in this country. i am on the finance committee. i can do that. i work to expand the earned income tax credit which is one of the great givers of money to families that need it. and to defend college location credits so that hundreds of thousands have a fighting chance to make ends meet and to get ahead. there is no substitute for a good job. so i did everything in my power,
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as you know, to bring toyota to west virginia. with 1200 workers and a total investment of $1.3 billion, it is the second-largest investment in our state's history. [applause] 20 other japanese companies followed. because of our incredible work force and because i never stop asking for more. that is what you do. you keep pushing, asking, hoping. butdon't always get a yes, you certainly don't get one if you don't fight for it.
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i pushed to make coal mining safer. in one of the peak moments of my career, i threatens to keep the senate over christmas, looking at me in total shock. i meant it to keep them over christmas if it did not pass the cola act. -- the coal act. [applause] i simply would not abide the injustice of an industry going back on the promise of lifetime health care for its retirees. something that really goes all the way back to a deal that john lewis and harry truman made in 1946. the united mine workers and i insisted on a new law that we called the coal act protecting 200,000 miners and their
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families today. we actually helped avert a nationwide coal strike in 1994. in that fight, and so many others, we have been proud to stand with the working men and women of america. steelworkers, teachers, nurses, and everyone deserves a fair wage and a safe place to work with a basic health care. [applause] our country cannot be as great as it should be unless our workers voices are heard and respected. not only by everybody in general, but certainly policymakers. i am just a single-minded about comprehensive health-care reform. i know is not particularly popular in west virginia, but it's ok. because of my fingerprints are all over it, i know is good and i know it will benefit west virginia more than any other state.
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it is so incredibly complex, not just the 17% of gdp has people like to say, but it is so complex and involved and interests of people, nuances that we just had to do something about it. everybody talked about it, nobody had done anything about it. i worked with the pepper commission is for two years, we rode a perfect long-term care policy and acute care policy and it was dead on arrival. i worked hard for the clinton health care bill, and it did not make it. this one came along, and i was determined to help make it happen.
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for the simple reason that should be a right and not a privilege. the affordable health care act is the way the 32 million americans in more than 300,000 of west virginians will be able to afford health insurance, truth, honesty, and we did not have the money to do it all, by the way. and so some of those folks won't get it until 2019. but they will get it. for the first time. and i sit back and i think of all the fights and the anger and the amendments that came out and went down. i am just so proud that we saw it through to the end. the insurance companies do not like it. which makes me very proud. because they're going to have to stop dumping people when they
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get sick. it is interesting in congress because you really have your fingers on information. always from a staff. and they just did that. somebody had been playing all their lives. they get some kind of disease and then they have been cut off. and who is to know? who is to care? we went after that with a lot of hearings in the congress committee at changed completely when the bill. you remember the public auction that was so popular and still is. the problem was not the public op5ion, we just could not get any votes. -- option, we just could not get any votes. do you walk away from that? no.
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you look for a new vehicle and it turned out to be the medical loss ratio. i love it not just for what it does but because nobody has any idea what it is so they can't attack it frontally unless they know something about it. insurance companies will have to stop dumping people when they get sick and stop spending more on vance the offices that medical care. because we say that they have to spend either 85% or 80% depending on their size of their premium money on health care. that health care gets measured and analyzed by hhs and other groups.
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if they fall short and spend more than the 15% or 20%, they have to pay a rebate to the premium payers. millions of dollars have come to west virginians and more than that across the country in rebates. imagine getting a rebate from an insurance company. that protect people from financial ruin. finally, it is law. [applause] just like the act that companies took to every single court available.
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but when the supreme court ruled that they were wrong and we were right, so to speak. that was that. the same thing happened on health care. everybody fighting every way that they know to chip away at the edges. the supreme court gets a hold of it and happily sustains it. and so is there, forever. i could go all day, probably your worst fear, about helping veterans and seniors living in dignity. after 9/11, it was an extraordinary experience to invest in science, technology, aviation, infrastructure. we put $50 million into the
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airport. i don't think many people know that, but i am telling you that. making its larger and safer. i can talk about the exhilarating fights as chairman of the committee to make our cause more efficient, and the internet more safe. the internet is a large and a looming problem and has everything to do with cyber security, something we seem not to be able to address in congress. we are leveraging the best in government to help people and solve problems, always keeping at the forefront. that is what we will do in the next two years in the senate. we have the debt ceiling coming up, and i want to be part of that fight. i will pour myself into it because there always is so much importance to be put into it. i have every intention of keeping up this intensity.
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this is a no-holds-barred approach that i will continue to have to solve problems that affect people's lives. i will never stop working for the people that meant so much to me. and there is another great passion in my life, certainly right here. in front of me. including valerie, that has the flu. so do not talk to her too much. sharon, and our grandchildren have not had enough of me. maybe they do not feel that way, but i do.
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they bring such total joy. it is time, pretty soon, for me to do public service in new ways. for sharon and our family to be my first priority. that is the way it comes to be. [applause] so i will close with heartfelt gratitude to all of you for coming here today, for everything that you all have done in so many different ways over the years. to my family whose support is unparalleled, and whose encouragement is felt. the best advisors i could ever imagine. not just those who spoke this morning, but so many of you out there who came from far away and change schedules to get here for this day. it honors me greatly. to my brilliant and compassionate staff. i have a good one.
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they are led by kerry, rocky, and ellen. they are endlessly dedicated to our state and two people in need. we all share it. we are a family of common interests and no holds barred, nothing stops us. i want to tell you about each one of the staff folks, person by person. i cannot do that. but i really want to. to all west virginians who took me in, transformed me, and supported me, whose home is and always will be mine, and who i will always be proud to fight for. no matter what the cause. thank you. [applause]
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>> tonight on c-span, a look at u.s. afghanistan relations. the first, president obama and afghan president karzai speak at a joint news conference from the white house. all of by president karzai's remarks at georgetown university. >> now, today's news conference with president obama and afghan president hamid karzai. as talks continue about the us mission in afghanistan after 2014. president karzai also met today with defense secretary leon panetta and secretary of state hillary clinton. as is about 40 minutes -- this is about 40 minutes.
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>> it is my pleasure to welcome president karzai back to the white house as well as his delegation. we last saw each other during the nato summit in chicago, a city that reflects the friendship between our peoples, including many afghan-americans and the karzai family. mr. president, welcome. we meet at a critical moment. the 33,000 additional forces i ordered to afghanistan have served with honor, they have completed their mission, and returned home this past fall. the transition is well underway, and soon nearly 90% of afghans will live in areas where afghan forces are in the lead for their own security. this year will mark another milestone. afghan forces will take the lead for security across the entire country, and by the end of next
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year, 2014, the transition will be complete. afghans will have full responsibility for their security, and this war will come to a responsible end. this progress is possible because of the incredible sacrifices of our troops and our diplomats, the forces of our many coalition partners, and the afghan people, who have endured. in this war, more than 2,000 american sons and daughters have had their lives ended, whom we honor forever, and as we announce today, in the next month i will present our natio 's highest military decoration, the medal of honor, to a staff sergeant for his service in afghanistan. today, president karzai and i have been able to review our shared strategy.
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with the devastating blows we have struck against al qaeda, the reason we went to war in the first place is now within reach insuring al qaeda can never use afghanistan to launch attacks against our country. at the same time, we pushed the taliban out of their strongholds. today, most major cities and most afghans are more secure and insurgents continue to lose territory. afghan forces continue to grow stronger, meanwhile. as planned, some 352,000 afghan soldiers and police are now in training or on duty. most missions are already being led by afghan forces. of all the men and women in uniform in afghanistan, the vast majority are afghans who are fighting and dying for their country every day.
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we still face significant challenges, but because this progress our transition is on track. last year we agreed with partners that afghan forces will take the lead for security in mid 2013. president karzai and his team have been here for several days, we have consulted with our coalition partners, and we will continue to do so, and today we agreed that as afghan forces take the lead and as president karzai announces the final phase of the transition, coalition forces will move to a support role this spring. our troops will continue to fight alongside afghans when needed, but let me say it as plainly as i can -- starting this spring, our troops will have a different mission, training, advising, assisting afghan forces. it will be an historic moment, and another step toward full
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afghan sovereignty, something i know that president karzai cares deeply about, as do the afghan people. this sets the stage for the further reduction of coalition forces, and we have already reduced our presence to roughly 66,000 u.s. troops, and we will continue to bring our forces home at a steady pace, and in the coming months i will announce the next phase of our draw-down. president karzai has discussed the nature of our security cooperation after 2014. our team continues to work for an agreement, and they will be guided by our respect for afghan sovereignty and by our tenets which will be specific and narrow. first, training and assisting afghan forces, and, second, targeted counter-terrorism missions against al qaeda. it is hoped we will reach an agreement this year.
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security gains must be matched by political progress, so we have recommitted to a process between the afghan government and the taliban. president karzai has updated me on the afghan government's commitment to peace, and we agree this process should be -- opening of ay the taliban office to faciliatate talks. reconciliation requires constructive support from across the region, including pakistan. we welcome recent steps that have been taken, and look for more tangible steps, because a stable at future afghanistan is in the interest of not only the afghans and the united states but of the entire region. we reaffirmed the strategic partnership that we signed last year in kabul, an enduring partnership between sovereign nations.
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this includes deepening ties in trade talks, commerce, , education, and opportunities for all afghans, men and women, boys and girls. this sends a clear message to afghans into the region as afghans stand up they will not stand alone. the united states and the world stands with them. let me close by saying this continues to be a very difficult mission. our forces continue to serve and the tremendous sacrifices every day. the afghan people make significant sacrifices every day. afghan forces will still be growing stronger. we remain vigilant against insider attacks. lasting peace and security will require governments at the ballot that delivers for the afghan people an end to safe havens for al qaeda. this will continue to get our work. make no mistake, our path is clear and we're moving forward.
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every day, more afghans are stepping up and taking a possibility, and as they do, our troops will come home. next year, this long war will come to responsible end. president karzai, i thank you and your delegation for the progress we have made together and for your commitment to the goals that we share. a strong and sovereign afghanistan, where afghans find security, peace, prosperity, and dignity, and in pursuit of that future, afghanistan will have a long-term partner in the united states of america. mr. president? >> thank you very much, mr. president, for your warm welcome and for appearing with us during our talks in the blair house.
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the president and i discussed today in great detail all the relevant issues between the two countries. i was happy to see that we have made progress on some of the important issues for afghanistan. concerning afghan sovereignty, we agreed on the complete return of detention centers and detainees to afghan sovereignty and that this will be implemented soon enough on my return to afghanistan. we also discussed all aspects of transition to afghan government and security. i am very happy to hear from the president as we also discussed it earlier that in the spring
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this year the afghan forces will be fully responsible for providing security and protection to the afghan people and that the international forces will be no longer president in afghan villages, that the task will be that of the afghan forces to provide for the afghan people in security and protection. that we also agreed on the steps that you should be taking in the peace process, which is giving sovereignty to afghanistan. we agreed on allowing the taliban have an office, where the taliban will engage in direct talks with the representatives of the afghan high council for peace, where we will be seeking that help of relevant reasonable countries,
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including pakistan, where we will try our best together with the other allies to return peace and stability to afghanistan as soon as possible and employee in all the means that are within our power to do that, so that the afghan people can live in security, peace, and work for the prosperity and education of their children. the president and i also discussed the economic transition of afghanistan and all that entails for afghanistan.
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once the transition to afghan forces is completed, once the bulk of the international forces are withdrawn from afghanistan, we hope the dividends of that transition will be beneficial to the afghan people and will not have adverse effects on afghan economy and the prosperity that we have obtained. we also discussed the issue of the election in afghanistan and the importance of election for the afghan people, with the hope that we will be conducting a free and fair election in afghanistan where our friends in the international community and the united states will be assisting in conducting those elections. of course, where afghanistan will have the right environment for conducting elections without interference and without undue concern. we also discussed in a bit of detail and in the environment that we have all aspects of the bilateral security agreement between afghanistan and the united states, and i informed the president that the afghan people already have given their
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approval to this relationship and value it as one that is good for afghanistan. in that context, the bilateral security agreement is one that the afghan people approve, and i am sure we will conduct it in detail where both the interests of the united states and the interests of afghanistan will be kept in mind. we had a number of other issues also to talk about during our conversations, and perhaps many times in that conversation, beginning with the composition of, of course.-- the
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conversation, of course. i thanked the president for the help that the united states has given to the afghan people for all that we have gained in the past 10 years and that those gains will be kept by any standard while we're working for peace and stability in afghanistan, including concern for the afghan constitution. i also thanked the president for the sacrifices of the men and women and those of other countries. i also informed president obama of the sacrifices of the afghan people, the immense sacrifices of the afghan people in the last 10 years, both servicemen and the afghan people. i am going back to afghanistan this evening to bring to the afghan people the news of afghanistan standing shoulder to shoulder with america as a sovereign, independent country, but in cooperation and in partnership.
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thank you, mr. president. >> thank you very much. we have got two questions each from u.s. and afghan press, and we will start with scott wilson of "the washington post." >> mr. president, moving the deadline to the spring, it does that mean you will be winding down u.s. troops faster than you expected this year, and specifically, how many troops do you expect to leave in afghanistan beyond 2014 for the missions? and would you consider leaving any trips beyond that date without an immediate agreement for their actions?
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president karzai, you have spoken about the american presence poses as a threat to afghanistan sovereignty. how many u.s. troops you would accept after that time? thank you. >> scott, our first task has been to meet the transition plan that we set first in lisbon, then in chicago. and because of the progress that has been made by our troops, because of the progress that has been made in terms of afghan security forces, their capacity to take the lead, we are able to meet those goals accelerate them somewhat. so let me repeat. what is going to happen this spring is that afghans will be
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in the lead throughout the country. that does not mean that coalition forces, including u.s. forces, are no longer fighting. they will still be fighting alongside afghan troops. it does mean, though, that afghans will have taken the lead and our presence, the nature of our work, will be different. we will be in a training, assisting, and advising mode. we will still have troops there, and that means that our men and women will still be in harm's way, that there will still be the need for enforced protection, the environment will still be very dangerous, but what we have seen is that afghan soldiers are stepping up at great risk to themselves, and that allows us than to make this transition during the spring. what that translates into precisely in terms of how this drawdown proceeds is something that is not yet fully determined. i am going to be over the coming weeks getting recommendations from general allen and other commanders.
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they will design a responsible plan to make sure that we are not losing the gains that had already been made, that we're in a position to support the afghan units when they are in theater, and to make sure that our folks are also protected, even as we are drawing down. i cannot give you a precise number at this point. i will be making a separate announcement once i have got recommendations from the generals and our commanders in terms of what that drawdown might look like. with respect to post-2014, we have two goals, and the main conversation today was establishing a meeting of the
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minds in terms of what those goals would be with a follow-on presence of u.s. troops. number one, to train, assist, and advise afghan forces so they can maintain their own security, and, number two, making sure that we can continue to go after remnants of al qaeda or other affiliates that might threaten our homeland. that is a very limited mission, and it is not one that will require the same kind of footprint that we have had over the last 10 years in afghanistan. similar to the issue of drawdown, i am still getting recommendations from the pentagon and our commanders on the ground in terms of what that would look like. and when we have more information about that, i will be describing that to the american people.
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i think president karzai's primary concern, and you will hear directly from him, is making sure afghan sovereignty is respected. and if we have a follow-on force of any sort past 2014, it has to be at the invitation of the afghan government, and they have to feel comfortable with it. i will say, as i have said to president karzai, that we have agreements with countries like this all around the world, and nowhere do we have any kind of security agreement with a country without immunity for our troops. that is how i as commander in chief can make sure that our folks are protected in carrying out very difficult missions. i think president karzai understands that.
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i do not want to get ahead of research in terms of the negotiations that are still remaining on the bilateral security agreement, but from my perspective, it will not be possible for us to have any kind of u.s. troop presence post-2014 without assurances that our men and women who are operating there in some way subject to the jurisdiction of another country. >> well, sir, the bilateral security agreement is in mind for the interests of both countries. the issue of the immunity is of very specific importance to the united states we understand, as was for us the issue of sovereignty and the tensions and the continued presence of international forces in afghan villages and the conduct of the war itself.
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with those issues resolved, as we did today, the rest was done earlier, i can go to the afghan people and argue for immunity for u.s. troops in afghanistan in a way that afghan sovereignty will not be compromised, in a way that afghan law will not be compromised, in a way that the provisions that we arrived at through our talks will give the united states the satisfaction of what it seeks, and will also provide the afghan people the benefit that they are seeking through this partnership and the subsequent agreement. [indiscernible] that is not for us to decide. it is an issue for the united states. numbers are not going to make a
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difference to the situation in afghanistan. it is the broader relationship that will make a difference to afghanistan and beyond in the region. the specifics of numbers are issues that the military will decide and afghanistan will have no particular concern and we are talking of numbers and how they are deployed. [indiscernible] >> i direct my question in my own language. mr. president, the mission of the united states, after 2014 -- how this mission will be, will it be resembling the same mission as it was during 11
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years, or instead, a different kind of mission? and pakistan in particular, the safe havens that are in pakistan, what kind of policy will you have? thank you. >> the mission will be fundamentally different. just to repeat, our main reason, should we have troops in afghanistan post-2014, at the invitation of the afghan government, will be to make sure that we are training, assisting, and advising afghan security forces who have taken the lead and are responsible for security throughout afghanistan, and the interest the united states has, the reason we went into first place, is to make sure that al qaeda and its affiliates cannot
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launch an attack against the united states or other countries from afghanistan. we believe we can achieve that mission in a way that is very different from the very active presence that we have had in afghanistan over the last 11 years. president karzai has emphasized the strains that u.s. troop presence in afghan villages, for example, has created. that will not be a strain if there is a follow-up operation because that will not be our responsibility. that will be the responsibility of the afghan national security forces to maintain peace, order, and stability in afghan villages, in afghan territory.
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so i think, although obviously we are still two years away, i can say with assurance that this is a very different mission and very different task and a very different footprint for the u.s. if we are able to come to an appropriate agreement. with respect to pakistan and safe havens of there, afghanistan and the united states and pakistan all have an interest in reducing the threat of extremism in some of these border regions between afghanistan and pakistan. that will require more than simply military actions. that is really going to require political and diplomatic work between afghanistan and pakistan, and the united states obviously will have an interest in facilitating and participating in cooperation between the two sovereign countries.
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as president karzai has indicated, it is very hard to imagine a stability and peace in the region if pakistan and afghanistan do not come to some basic agreement and understanding about the threat of extremism to both countries and both governments in the capitals, and you are starting to see a greater awareness of that on the part of the pakistani government. >> the question that you have made about -- we talked about this issue in detail today, about the presence, the detention centers. all of these will refer to the afghan sovereignty, where the u.s. forces will pull out from villages, will go to their bases, and afghan sovereignty
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will be restored, after 2014. we're working on these relations. these relations will have a different nature and will be working on different principles. it will resemble turkey or germany. we are studying these relationships, and we will do that. >> thank you, mr. president. as you contemplate the end of this war, can you say something as commander in chief of the huge human, financial costs that this is, if it can be justified,
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that the world left behind will be somewhat diminished than at the beginning of the war? president karzai, many independent studies have criticized afghanistan for corruption and poor governance. do you stand by your assertion that much of this is due to influence of foreigners? will you stand down for elections next year? >> i want us to remember why we went to afghanistan. we went into afghanistan because 3,000 americans were viciously murdered by a terrorist organization that was operating openly and at the invitation of those who were then ruling afghanistan.
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it was absolutely the right thing for us to go after that organization, to go after the host government that had aided and abetted or at least allowed for these attacks to take place, and because of the work of our men and women in uniform and because of the corporation and the sacrifices of afghans who had also been brutalized by the then host government, we achieved our central goal, which is -- or have come very close to achieving the central goal -- which was to decapitate al qaeda. everything we have done over the last 10 years, from the perspective of the u.s. national security interests, have been focused on that goal.
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and at the end of this conflict, we are going to be able to say that the sacrifices that were made by those men and women in uniform has brought about the goal that we sought. now, when we also recognize the very early on was that it was in our national security interest to have a stable, sovereign afghanistan that was a responsible international actor, that was in partnership with us, and that that required afghanistan to have its own security capacity and to be on a path that was more likely to achieve prosperity and peace for its own people. and i think president karzai would be the first to acknowledge afghanistan still has work to do to accomplish those goals, but there is no doubt that the possibility of
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peace and prosperity in afghanistan today is higher than before we went in. and that is also in part because of the sacrifices that the american people have made during this long conflict. do i think have we achieved everything that some might have wanted us achieving in some areas? probably not. this is a human enterprise. did we achieve our central goal, and have we been able to shape a strong relationship with a responsible afghan government that is willing to cooperate with us to make sure that it is not a launching pad for future attacks against united states?
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we have achieved that goal, we are in the process of achieving that goal, and for that we have to take our turn very military, diplomatic and intelligence teams as well as the cooperation of the afghan government and the afghan people. >> on the question of corruption, whether it has a foreign element to it, in answer to your question, there is corruption in afghanistan, there is corruption in the afghan government that we are fighting against through various means and methods. we have succeeded in certain ways, but if your question is whether we are satisfied, of
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course not. and on the corruption that is foreign in the origin, but occurring in afghanistan, i have been very clear and explicit, and i do not think that afghanistan can see this corruption unless there is cooperation between us and foreign international partners on correcting some of the methods or applications, delivery of assistance to afghanistan, without cooperation, and without recognition of the problems. on elections, for me, the greatest of my achievements eventually as seen by the afghan people will be a proper, reorganized, interference-free election in which the afghan people can elect their next president.
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certainly, i would be a very tired president and a very happily retired president. >> my questions to you, mr. president, afghan women fear that they would be the victim of the process in afghanistan. what assurances can you give them that they will not suffer because of that process? thank you.
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>> the united states has been very clear that any peace process, any reconciliation process must be afghan led. it is not for the afghan press or the united states to determine what this peace will be, but what we have also been clear about is that from our perspective it is not possible to reconcile without the taliban renouncing terrorism, without them recognizing the afghan constitution, and recognizing that if there are changes they want to make to how the afghan government operates, then there is an orderly constitutional process to do that, and that you cannot resort to violence. the afghan constitution protects the rights of afghan women. and the united states strongly
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believes that afghanistan cannot succeed unless it gives opportunity to its women. we believe that about every country in the world. we will continue to voice very strongly support for the afghan constitution's protection for minorities, its protection of women, and we think that a failure to provide that protection not only will make reconciliation impossible to achieve, but also would make afghanistan's longterm development impossible to achieve. the single best indicator or one of the single best indicators of a country's prosperity around the world is how does it treat its women.
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does it educate that half of the population? does it give them opportunity? when it does, you will unleash the power of everyone, not just some, and there was great wisdom in afghanistan ratifying a constitution that recognizes that appeared that should be part of the legacy of these last 10 years. thank you very much, everybody. >> the afghan president later spoke to an audience at georgetown university, following his meeting with president obama. he also took questions from the audience. this is about 40 minutes.
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[applause] >> good evening, everyone. welcome to our distinguished guests from all around the world, especially afghanistan, our faculty, students, colleagues and friends. the u.s. afghan women's council at georgetown university is so delighted to co-host tonight's event. this dynamic council a private partnership with members from abroad array of sectors who seek to advance the role of women and children in afghan society. they have invested heavily in the society in health, education, and leadership. our president is one of the co- chairs of the council. it is my great pleasure to
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introduce him this evening. he is a scholar, advocate, and a true friend of afghanistan. [applause] >> thank you very much for that introduction and your work as vice chair of the u.s. afghan women's council. i wish to thank the members from the delegation from afghanistan, u.s. afghan women's council and all of our guests from around the world for joining us this evening. it is a privilege to welcome back to georgetown the president of afghanistan hamid karzai.
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we look forward to hearing his remark on afghanistan beyond 2014, a perspective on afghan- u.s. relations. 2014 will be an historic year for afghanistan as it will witness elections across the country and the end of u.s. and is combat operations. as president obama, secretary of state clinton and many of this room have emphasized this transition provides us with the opportunity for diplomatic and cultural relations between our peoples. at georgetown, we are proud to be a part of this critical work notably through the u.s. afghan women's council. the council is a public private partnership that has been housed here at the university since 2008. it was founded in 2002 by president karzai and president
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bush in support of afghan women and children. it's focused its work of areas of education, health, economic empowerment, leadership development, and humanitarian assistance. since its founding the council has created call leadership, provided skills training, literacy and health care, established a burn center to treat victims and provide reconstructive surgery and provide leadership training for afghan women. in recent years we have witnessed significant improvements of the lives of women and children throughout afghanistan. educational opportunities for all children, including girls have increased. improvements have been made in the area of maternal and child health with the maternal mortality rate drops to 460--
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deaths per 100 0 100,000 births to 460 today. many advancements have been realized with 90% of afghanistan cover bid the four main telecom providers. we wish to make sure these are sustained, built upon and expanded in the future and we recognize more must be done and we look forward to working with our partners in the public and private sector to continue to see improvements in the lives of afghan women and children and the afghan people as a whole. as co-chair of the council i wish to invite each of you in
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this room to become involved in our common work. tonight, here our work continues. we have the opportunity to talk to the leader and hear his thoughts on the future of his country, his people, and afghan- u.s. relations. as the university and in tradition we believe in the power of discourse and dialogue to bring us to a greater understanding of one another, of our shared world, and our work together. we will look forward to the dialogue that tonight's program will inspire in the weeks and months ahead. ladies and gentlemen, it is my privilege to welcome to the podium the president of afghanistan hamid karzai. [applause]
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>> please. thank you very much. please. this is my second time in this lovely hall. the first time was quite a few years ago and when i was very popular in the u.s. the second time is more real time. this university is also the one that has honored me with an honorary doctrine and i thank you once again for that. it is hanging in my living room with expectation that my son one day will be studying here.
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so i keep telling him georgetown university. but ladies and gentlemen, the journey we began together in 2001 that is afghanistan and the united states. it was for a great cause. freeing civilians from terrorism and radicalism, little bitter-- liberating afghanistan from an invasion and a rule by the taliban.
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the first one, in reverse order, the first one freeing afghanistan happened within a month and a half to two months. subsequent of that afghanistan began its journey towards democracy, the rule of law, progress in all aspects of life. it went all right. it went reasonably good under the circumstances. without a doubt with the help of the united states and our other allies around the world. the second part, freeing us all from terrorism and radicalism,
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didn't work as swiftly as we expected. there was bumps along the road and setbacks. now, the afghan people regardless where they stand recognize that afghanistan could not have made the progress that we have made in the past 10 years without the help we received from our allies. led by the united states of america. in more cruder terms the u.s. taxpayer's money. it contributed to afghanistan's upliftment.
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it contributed to the workplace, to society, to policy, the return of young girls to education. the return of universities, roads, communications, mobile phones, computers, all of that. [laughter] mobile phone wasn't a joke. i meant it. in 2001, we barely had telephones. my office was given a few walkie-talkie that was our form of communication we had.
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today, the population of nearly 30 million has telephone available to 18 million. not one, two, or three companies but many more, four or five and they own them all. so the country has made progress. now, the war on terror has been costly. it has been costly to you in america, so many of your men and women in uniform has lost life. it has been costly to our allies. it also has been costly massively to the afghan people. we have lost in the past 10 years tens of thousands of civilians to violence.
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this year alone, i mean, last year this year has just begun, each month we lost 250 of our servicemen and women to terrorism and nearly 450 casualties in our villages each month. so the cost has been immense. therefore, there are complaints on both sides. it has been a difficult journey. a journey at which at times expectations are not met.
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when that doesn't happen both sides complain. i'm aware of the complaints in your media. you're aware of my complaints. but the journey continued, the relationship continued. afghanistan would always be better off in close contact and partnership with the united states. that is why last year will be convened afghan or the grand council, the afghan voted for partnership with the united states. they voted for a partnership with the united states and a sovereign country. and excepting that sovereignty will be respected by our allies.
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today, i'm glad to report to you, ladies and gentlemen that asked, the afghans and the united states government agreed upon a format for expanding our relationship into the bilateral security agreement. by which, the united states will reduce its forces in afghanistan, will stay beyond 2014 in a limited number, in certain facilities in afghanistan and the united states will continue to train and assist afghanistan and afghanistan will be responsible for its own security and protection of its own boards and all that comes with it. so is the future certainly good for us?
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does it have dangers on its way? are we certain to move forward? will this partnership work? yes. what you hear in segments or the various bodies informing you on events in afghanistan, the media. if i watched television in the united states or in europe and just judged afghanistan from that perspective it would be a disaster. i would lose all hope.
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but if i came from afghanistan with all the traffic jams there and all the pollution there now and tall phones ringing there, with all the television channels there, we all the hustle and bustle of life and the young people going to education, studying, working, and making life move forward. i would give you a different perspective. i would say afghanistan is definitely moving in the right direction. 2014 will be a good year for us. and the year after will be even better and this country will have its third presidential elections. in a year and few months i will be a retired president. there will be a new president
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elected by the afghan people. the economy will move further it has been growing at 8% to 9%. in 10 years from a mere $180 per capita we're looking at $600 to $700 million. today, we're talking -- i don't know if i should tell you that because other governments will hear me and not help us anymore. $7 billion in our reserves. more than 30 universities private and public. roads, electricity, the future holds clear and progress and prosperity but the standards of our region and afghanistan. now will afghanistan, 10 years from now be a very prosperous country?
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will they have resolved all the difficulties? will afghanistan be a super power? no. but afghanistan will be a country that will be moving forward. education will grow better. thousands of students will graduate in our own universities. thousands more will come from studies abroad who are now studying abroad. the democracy and institutions that democracy requires will grow, there will be more elections. there will be more institutional reform. there will be a better government but afghanistan will continue to face problems, there
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may be violence and there might be other challenges as we move forward but the speed of progress will move and will not stop. will afghanistan remember the united states as a country that helped or a country that did not help? definitely afghanistan will remember the united states as a country that helped. definitely afghanistan will remember that it was the u.s. assistance that brought so much to afghanistan. who will forget the less pleasant aspect ours relationship and we will move forward in the gratitude of the help that the united states has provided to afghanistan and
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also our other neighbors. but from today as we move forward will this relationship be a emotional as it was at time as you have heard in the past many years? will this relationship billion more mature? this relationship has already grown mature. we recognize the united states interest and afghanistan and the region and the united states recognizes that afghanistan is a good country. and has a life of its own. it has a law of its own and has a social context of its own. in that social context afghanistan will move forward in partnership with america and also until partnership with the other countries of nato that have helped us in the past many years.
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will afghanistan, beyond 2014, be a country that you can visit as tourists? yes, it will. will afghanistan suffer the consequences of terrorism? it might on occasions. will the peace process work? it will. will the peace process take us back to times where the afghan woman could not go to work? no. will we keep our progress it is part of if peace process? yes. it is important today to get through this forum where the afghan woman council was created many years ago. if afghanistan will have peace
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but peace with the taliban will not drive us away from the gains that we have made. rather those gains will definitely be consolidated and those gains will remain with the afghan people. as i'm talking to you, afghanistan has a standing police of 350,000. afghanistan has a banking sector, afghanistan has a strong culture. you've all heard of pomegranates they come from afghanistan. you have heard of grapes. they come from afghanistan. the ones that come from afghanistan, i know you have them in california as well. [laughter] so, ladies and gentlemen, there is a country in afghanistan just like here in america just
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like the rest of the world. there is wedding and wedding halls, there is music, there is cars honking, there are donkey driven carts. there is society, there is life. this society is out loudly and moving forward as any other society. it is this that i would like you to remember when you think of afghanistan. a country of 5000 years of history, at least. a country that has produced thinkers, philosophers. a country like other countries, and i can tell you that the most recent suffering will be behind us. a new time is beginning, has
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already begun. with 2014 coming, your sons and daughters will no longer be burdened with protecting afghanistan. the sons and daughters will take the mantle and move forward. and plenty more can best be described by frost. the words are lovely, dark, and d. but i have promises to keep and miles to go before i sleep and miles to go before we sleep in afghanistan. thank you. [applause]
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>> thank you very much. thank you. >> thank you for your inspiring remarks. we asked our georgetown community, and now that we have heard from you about your degree, what the first question should be that we ask you. and we asked facebook so we could get as broad a response as possible. i have the daunting job of choosing which and trying to frame this question. you know students are very frank, and in their responses, the students of georgetown including several afghan students expressed their concerns about corruption,
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security, women's rights, and economic opportunity. the first question i would like to put to you on behalf of all these students, what hope can you offer a young generation of afghan men and women? >> a great question. hope has already been offered in afghanistan. what we had in 2001, only a few thousand students going to school, and none of them girls. today, you have a million students going to school, 45% of them girls, and they are used well.
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out of a membership of 240, 70 of the parliament are women. that is already taken. when you have a country having thousands of bridges and roads, never did we build some money in 10 years, that opportunity is taken. the country today has students, politicians, business is moving forward and thriving. that hope is taken. the question should be, will this hopes persist in 2014 when international forces withdraw
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from afghanistan? when they will be on their own, will we continue with this vote? without a doubt. if i am lucky enough to stand before you here again 10 years ago, we will speak three times in numbers. that certainty is there, and i am absolutely sure it is going to be the case. >> that is very hopeful. in order to get a broad representation of questions, we
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asked student organizations to formulate questions for his excellency. the first organization out like to call is the international development club. >> good evening, mr. president, and thank you for being with us tonight. i am chair of the international relations club. close enough. my question to you on behalf of my organization is this. if from a security perspective, one of the greatest concerns is that al qaeda will rebound and afghan the stand will become a terrorist state. how can you mitigate without risking green on blue attacks? >> one of the reasons the united states will continue a presence in afghanistan after 2014 in certain facilities, it
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is because we have decided to gather to continue to fight against al qaeda. there will be no respite in that. we will continue to work, and they will not. they are decimated, largely, and on their way out. when i receive security, we have meetings on security issues and we never come across the question whether it is a threat. the fact that the fight will continue, and affiliates will continue.
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and part of the reason the united states will continue to have limited facilities will be to continue that task. it is also recognized by our neighbors. thank you. >> international relations club, thank you. i can get it right the second time. the next student organization we would invite is the student association. >> my name is thomas gibbons, i am the president of the student veterans association. if i have served to deployment in your country as the united states marines. what would you say to an american family that has lost a son or daughter in afghanistan,
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and what would you say they die for? >> that is a relevant question. the united states came to afghanistan, as i said, to defeat terrorism. after these of timber 11 attack. the united states came to afghanistan for the security of the united states. and also for afghans. that act -- those unfortunate incidents of the lives lost in afghanistan were for the safety and security of the united states. and also, by extension, for the rest of us in the international community.
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just like the sacrifice of the afghan people. thank you. >> the next organization we would like to thank for organizing this event and the events like this in the university will be the lecture fund. lecture member of the fund and a sophomore. in the new york times, taliban fighters that lay down arms are getting increasingly frustrated and returning to the taliban. they cite a high unemployment rate for the reason for their frustration. what will you do to combat this trend? >> the high peace council whose chairman is here with us, a fund
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is dedicated to this purpose. this is the reintegration program. they are driven back with society. if there are instances, and i am sure there are, it requires assistance sooner and we will definitely look at it. it is a very important question, thank you for reminding us.
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>> the last student organization we would invite is the muslim student association. >> good evening, mr. president. i am with the moslem student association. we understand education as a vital factor in the overall growth and future stability of afghanistan. educated citizens can drive change from within. what are your plans short-term and long-term to ensure that this progress that you mentioned of education continues to move forward? especially in regard to increased access of education for women. >> we did see a great deal of violence against schools in the initial years by the taliban. we succeeded against that. there are executions and -- pakistan is going through a
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very difficult time. and other of events there, they are all a source of concern for us. i can speak with satisfaction, the suffering that we have had, our schools are safer in the past three years, the great majority of girls go to school in afghanistan do if in safety and security. we have not had any major incidents. and this concern for families
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and students would be less and less a matter to think of. thank you, sir. >> this will conclude the program. i have one important announcement before i thank our remarkable speaker. please do not leave your seat until you hear the voice in the wilderness that will this mess us. and only the afghan delegation will depart until such moment. on behalf of all of us, you have given us allot to think about. a lot of inspiration. women are lucky to have your support and we look forward to a wonderful future for your country. thank you so much. [applause]
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[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> tomorrow, two different perspectives on climate change, and a recent report. our guests are david doniger and myron ebell. then we will talk about senators who are investigating cia forces and their role in the movie zero dark thirty. later, a look at the food and drug administration's new safety rules. we are joined by sarah klein.
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live at 7:00 eastern and c-span. >> he could read it the president's moods unlike anyone else. he came as close to gaining admittance into what was called roosevelt's heavily forested interior. unlike misses roosevelt, he knew when to be still in the presence of the president, went to press him, when to back off and tell a joke. after he won the election, wendell wilke was in his office. he said, why do you keep that man so close to you? he did not like hopkins.
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roosevelt said, you baby in this office some day and you will understand. -- you may be in this office and they and you will understand. he asks for nothing except to serve me. >> harry hopkins lived in the roosevelt white house for three and a half years. david roll on "the hopkins touch." >> next, a look at karzi's trip to washington this week. colonel meese certification fort two decades. he is the son of ed meese. this is just over an hour. [applause]
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>> it is truly an honor to be here with the alabama affairs council. general cleveland, all of the distinguished members of the alabama world affairs council, it is great to be here at the museum. it is the first time i have ever been to montgomery, so i greatly appreciate the invitation. general cleveland is nothing if not persistent in coming after speakers. the first time he called me, i was in afghanistan, he wondered why i could come back here to do this. being a distinguished graduate of the u.s. military academy class of 1949, an ace during the korean war, and to think it was 60 years ago last september, if
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i get the history right, that general cleveland became an ace, it is truly remarkable, so please join me in thanking him for his service. [applause] i also appreciate them recognizing my father as a member of the reagan administration. when i teach at west point, they think the reagan administration was sometimes after the taft administration, so people who recognize the name of edwin meese iii, it is great to be here, and i appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to come here and be better informed about what our nation is doing with regard to combating terrorism and what we are doing as a people and as a military, and where that is going. i will tell you a little bit about that.
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i want to say for all of you and especially for c-span that these are my personal academic opinions and not those of the united states government. as you will hear, it should be the position of united states government. [laughter] are my personal academic opinions and not those of the united states government. as you will hear, it should be the position of united states government. [laughter] i come to this audience with a bit of trepidation. there are so many people who pay attention to these issues that i have to remain humble in these circumstances, and when i do that, i begin by telling myself the story, which is a true story, about the u.s.s. abraham lincoln and canadian authorities off the coast of newfoundland in 1995. here is how the radio communication took place. the u.s. said on the radio, "please divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avert collision." canadians responded, "negative, you divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid the collision."
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"this is the captain of the u.s. navy warship. divert your course to 15 degrees to the south." canadians responded, "no, you divert your course 15 degrees to the north." "this is the aircraft carrier u.s.s. lincoln, the second largest in the atlantic fleet. we are accompanied by numerous support vessels. i demand you divert your course 15 degrees to the south, or countermeasures will be taken." "this is a lighthouse. your call." [laughter] i will remain humble and not be too arrogant as i give you some thoughts about terrorism, and what i thought i would do is let you know what we have done at west point. it is the follow on to that with the combating terrorism center at west point, and the
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second part is to tell you about what we teach cadets with regard to iraq, where i have spent 12 months on three different tours, and talk about afghanistan, where i just came back last summer, spent from the summer of 2010 and the summer of 2011 in afghanistan, and then talk a little bit about the way forward with regard to national security. i will try to leave plenty of time for questions and look forward to your questions at the end. when the world trade towers collapsed on 9/11, it was 45 miles south in new york city. i was teaching a class at the time, and we had a scheduled briefing by the dean of the academic ward from the west point class of 1968. he was supposed to speak about what they were going to major in, and it got all the sophomores and an auditorium that holds 1,100 cadets, and it
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was 12:30 right after lunch on 9/11, and he said, events like this is when the military and the army go into action and get things done. and that is what we have had to wrestle with at west point, of what you do, how do you change the curriculum, what do you do to prepare the young men and women at west point that are going to have the awesome responsibility of leading soldiers in combat during a period of violence in which we were not sure about? when we looked around at this, literally the next couple of nights, several of us went down to new york city to help with recovery efforts at ground zero, and one of our graduates from the class of 1977, who was the head of the american mercantile exchange, said, we
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ought to study this at west point to better prepare the cadets. so we took a look at various histories and what we wanted to do, and we were reassured by these words from a president. when we saw the challenges of an ideologically driven hatred that would be with us for a generation, and then we realized that we had done this before and that these were at the time not the words of president bush, but the words of president eisenhower when he was talking about communism. and throughout the cold war, we had in most universities, here in alabama and throughout the united states, soviet studies departments and entire fields of professors that were looking at communism. but we did not have a similar set of people that were studying the radical islamist salafi jihadi ideology within our universities in general and especially not at west point or within the military. so we thought there needed to be an important linkage, and so we came up with a vision that you can see on this slide to look at the intellectual and strategic issues.
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of course, the united states government has a very sophisticated intelligence apparatus that does an excellent job with many professionals in washington and throughout the world.
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they're very good at analyzing intelligence, very good at providing information up to decision makers. but there was not really a linkage between a lot of the strategic study that was happening in colleges and universities, many in near east studies departments and others, and the military. what we found was west point was in a unique position because in a sense, similar to the area universities. it is both a dot-mil and a dot- edu. we were able to bring academics down from the ivory towers. thucydides said, "a nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its laws made by cowards and its wars fought by fools." our purpose was to put together an organization that could link together the best two aspects of the united states, the best we are in the world at, the best military and the best academics, to be able to address the critical issues of terrorism.
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so we came up with a mission to have the center educate, advise, and conduct research to provide information, both for current leaders and the future leaders, the cadets that we are teaching, about the current and future threats of terrorism. we do that to educate cadets, through doing research, and actually a limited part of what we do is policy analysis, because the professionals in washington concentrate on policy and analysis do that and much more rapid fashion than we do up at west point, but is still an important part that is derived from a lot of the things that we do. when the first and most
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important thing that we do every day is teach cadets, and we concentrate on providing that education in a rigorous curriculum that is designed for every cadet at west point that we have integrated into the ss307 international relations course, so they understand the roots of terrorism and that some of the counter-terrorism actions that are taken by our nation so that every cadet gets that. in addition to the core instruction that is taught to every cadet, we created the first minor in terrorism studies. in addition to taking civil engineering, arabic, or economics, they can get a minor in terrorism studies where they take five courses that focus on terrorism, homeland security, and related courses, and then are able to focus that in their particular area to prepare them for their lifetime service in
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the army. as we developed this curriculum and published text books and published articles, all we found that others were interested in what we were doing, and so the assistant director of the fbi for counter- terrorism came to west point and said the fbi could benefit from this kind of education as well. and so they asked west point to go and expand our education for cadets to what we now call practitioner education. we send people from west point and combating terrorism center down to quantico, virginia, to the fbi academy, and they teach each new agent and new analyst instruction on terrorism to reinforce the kinds of things that are taught at the fbi academy. to come here and be informed
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about what we are doing to counter terrorism and where that is going. i'll tell you a little bit about that. i do want to state for all of you and especially for c-span these are my personal academic opinions and not the position of the united states government so
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they have that disclaimer out there. although, as you'll hear as i'm talking about it, i think it should be the position of the united states government. >> we know of osama bin lot and hiding and others hiding in various areas and in other places until the middle east. frequently they are communicating with each other on the internet. here are some of the clip from their web pages. by reading the web pages, we are able to actually go through.
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we have people that speak five different languages. we were able to translate and see what the terrorists are saying among and between each other. they are actually remarkably truthful on these websites. that is the way they provide -- command guidance to their own operations. it is the way they identify objectives. research and documenting what they are saying among and between each other, and it gives us important insight. the second thing we combine that with is what is known as the database. it is maintained by the defense intelligence agency in washington and it consists of all of the captured battlefield documents. american and other persons pick up on the battlefield. they get put into this electronic database. it is a very useful database for
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the intelligence agencies. these are all things captured from the battlefield from the terrorists themselves. once forces have gone through and found out whether or not there is immediate targeting of value, it goes into this large database. one of the values of having -- not only cannot hire people with master's degrees and a ph.d. is, i can also get them security clearances so they can access these databases and request the declassification of many of these documents. . you can combine it with literature they're putting on
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the web with the scholarly journals that are out there and we can learn a lot more about what is happening within terrorism. that is what we teach to our cadets every day. but i will do is reflect those as i talk about iraq and afghanistan and tell you a little bit about some of lessons that we've learned from iraq and afghanistan because frequently although we've been involved in those conflicts for over a decade now, often many of the details are not sufficiently covered which we will not correct by covenants on c-span. frequently, the media, when you turn on the tv at night will be covering the kardashian failed marriage. rather than captured the very complex actions that your military has taken within iraq
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and afghanistan. think kansas and not new mexico. there is snow in afghanistan. you can see well, it's important because of the pace of history when we now withdraw all forces from afghanistan, people don't remember what has happened over was literally on fire. this map is of baghdad and each
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of these plots are actually incidents that took place. this is from january of 2006 to the end of 2006 with the increase of civilian deaths and increase of improvised explosive device that is took place. iraq was in the middle of a full blown civil war with 3,000 iraqis killing each other every single month and there was very little thought to how that was going to correct itself. and many of you may remember the political controversy that faced the bush administration at the time. the important decision that is were made at the end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007 and are now coming out in all of the books are use to feel go back and look at. it was an important decision where president bush agreed with prime minister malachi the prime minister of iraq to surge
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30,000 troops into iraq and 30,000 troops into baghdad to be able to address this civil war that was happening in iraq and try to keep it from becoming a much broader, much more dangerous, much more difficult conflict. but the important aspect at the time the three star commander over there is now the chief of staff of the army and was the core commander in charge of all the units there and general petraeus came in. what they recognized at the time was adding the additional 30,000 forces, if you did not change the tactics and the procedures at the time would probably not have worked as well. so subsequently, it was
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important to change three major ideas. and i'll explain those because it explains a lot of what we may be doing going in the future with regard to counterterrorism and the distinction between counterterrorism and counter insurgency. this was the doctrine that was developed with regard to counter insurgency. the important of it is that it address it is population and focuses instead of focusing exclusively on the enemy focuses on the population that you see there, some of which support the government, some of which are neutral or passive, and some of which are part of the insurgency. it addresses all of the aspects of the insurgency or terrorists and some people think that it's just a lot of hearts and mind stuff. all of this stability thing where we work on government and economics and services and those sorts of things, and that's
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important. but it's equally important to recognize that it also is critical to have offensive operations, and that's a lot of the counterterrorism force that is are able to capture and kill the insurgents or terrorists in the area as well as the defensive force that is protect the u.s. soldiers and the host nation soldiers, in this case in iraq, building up the host nation so that they have the force that is are sufficient to be able to address the insurgency at the time. the objective is moving left to right where you have more people supportive of the government and a much smaller insurgency that is involved.
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this theory applies to iraq and afghanistan and more broadly applies to counterterrorism as we go forward in the future. the second dig distinction that took place was splitting the opposition. if you look on this slide, in the center we knew we were supporting the government which included most of the people in iraq that were broadly supportive of what was happening with the malachi government, again, with some problems that happen in any kind of political situation. the distinction was on the left- hand side, you had the extremist over here, al qaeda in iraq, the islamic state of iraq, those were the extremist that had to be captured or killed. on the other extreme you had the extremist that were supported by
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iran, the secret cells and special groups that also had to be captured or killed as part of counterterrorism operations. the real question is what do you do with the people in the middle? those groups that are negotiate completely in the insurgents camp or the government camp. this is one of the key changes that is referred to as the end bar awakening. a man came to him and said look, we're tired of the taliban forcing us to follow them, not letting us do our normal trucking businesses, forcing our women into forced marriages, not allowing people or chopping off their fingers if they're caught smoking, we will stop opposing you if you'll
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allow us to be part of the defense of iraq. and in fact, this is how the program called the sons of iraq was created which resulted in 103,000 men that had been opposing the regime to put down their weapons and get enrolled and included fingerprints and face shots and iris scans so you could identify them if they turned up involved in other northeast fares things and was an important way of reducing the number of terrorist that is you had to go after. as many leaders have testified before congress, general petraeus and many others we're not going to kill our way out of this war.
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it has a lot to do with information and it has to do with people being reconciled to their government. so this was the second important idea. the third critical idea that we did was to make sure to communicate that. and many of you probably remember the unprecedented congressional testimony in front of the house armed services committee and foreign relations committee and the senate foreign relations committees where general petraeus testified for seemed like 19 hours straight. because it was important to communicate this to the american people as well as to the congress of the united states which at the time included four presidential candidates, at the senator clinton, senator biden, senator mccain and senator obama.
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and what was being challenged at the time, you may remember the advertisement that said that general petraeus was being fast and loose with statistics. and let me show you what those statistics were. these are the total amount of violent incidents in iraq from 2004 all the way up to 010. and when the insurgents started the psyches of violence it went up substantially and the question is whether this was a reduction in violence preceding the testimony or whether general petraeus was making that up. he wasn't making that up and we didn't know it at the time but here is what ended up happening. over the past five years, with the effectiveness of the surge and especially the building up of the iraq security forces to be able to handle the violence that was taking place in iraq,
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to isolate and eliminate the insurgency, they were able to bring iraq down to the level of violence that could be handled locally. another important decision, i mentioned the first one made by president bush to have the surge, the second was made by president obama shortly after he came into office. you may remember he said his proposals to do a responsible with drawl of forces from iraq which was initially thought of as pulling all the forces out in 16 months. after consulting with his advisors president obama decided to withdraw instead of the rapid line there, to go down to 50,000 troops in 19 months and then to withdraw all of the forces by the end of 2011 which was part of the agreement that president bush had established. that became particularly
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important for the iraq government to be able to stabilize after the elections and be able to deal with circumstances that are on the ground. again, iraq is not the place i would spend my next anniversary vacation. but you should be proud and note the work that has been done by putting together a counterterrorism strategy. we contributed i think in a small part to that at the combating terrorism center by these documents and exposing what was actually happening there in iraq. a special forces group seized the human resources command essentially of al qaeda and iraq with the sin jar records. and they ended up identifying all of the foreign fighters in iraq. well when we published this
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report that you see on the left a bright news week reporter went back to the main city in libya where most of these foreign fighters came from and talked to people in that town to find out why they created so many foreign fighters. and in fact the combating terrorism center published all of them on the web so these are the actual pictures of the fighters. as a result of this it became a cover story for news week all across the middle east and pointed out the terrorists and how they duped a lot of the people to go and fight for them and as a result the number of foreign fighters coming into iraq slowed down from over 100
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a month to just a handful each missouri that come bind with the operation that is were taking place. again it reinforces the important point that terrorists will appeal to any kind of tendency they can to get recruits but once they are exposed, the line of recruiting will dwindle. we'll go through afghanistan because that is in the news this week with president karzai coming to washington to meet with people in the defense department and president obama. obviously afghanistan is vitally important as well being the source of the 9/11 attacks as well as being in between pakistan and i ran both of which are problem mats i can 23r9 united states. what people may not recognize -- there were actually no u.s. force there is until president obama gave his speech on the first of december 2009 at west point where there will be a surge of 30,000 troops many of whom went to this area of kandahar and this area of hellman both army troops and marines to be able to address the terrorist threat.
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again, they did a comprehensive approach as understand iraq and here are the graphs that are relatively similar to those that i showed you. the difference is from 2008 to 2012 in afghanistan, in afghanistan the fighting is mostly in the summer, these are the summers of 2008 to the beginning of 2012 where you see a decrease in the actual year over year violence in afghanistan through the application of both the american military forces, our allied military forces and especially the build up of the afghanistan security forces. in a little bit more detail what people here in the united states frequently don't realize is that the united states has been leading a coalition of 49 other nation that is are in
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afghanistan. so this really is the world's main efforts. in fact, three of the divisions the most violent areas are commanded by americans, but three of the other regional commands are commanded by a turkish general, by a german general in the north and by an italian general out on the western border with iran. so these come bind forces have been effective in addressing many of the issues in afghanistan. now again, none of them provide a knock out blow. a lot of the discussion will
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continue to take place in washington over the next several days about what the future is going to be. and you hear lots of press reports about what will happen from now to 2014 which is when nato has said that all of the combat missions in afghanistan will end and part of the discussion that will take place in washington which we can address in questions and answers is what will remain there as we continue to have a very important part of the u.s. strategy. but what we've learned is that this was an opportunity for many terrorists organizations to be able to leverage the weakness of the state of afghanistan to operate there, both their legal activities you see on the left- hand side of the slide as well as their illegal activities there on the right in which they extort money. one of the most noteworthy networks that we've written about is the hi canny network
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and our study of the network we sent people over to afghanistan that went with many of the counterterrorism forces that were going after them, documented what they were doing in terms of undermining the state in afghanistan, in terms of trying to have spectacular attacks that got a lot of press but didn't do a lot of damage and put that together in an academic report. that report as well as study led to the united states declaring the terrorist network being on the treasuries financing list so that nobody can do business with that network which allows them -- prevents them from doing a lot of the action that is they were taking. another report we did was on the deadly vanguards. this documented from arabic sources the fact that 94% of
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those killed by al qaeda were actually muslims. this got huge coverage in the arabic media. in fact, adam ghadan, the al qaeda spokesman came out trying to refute the report. but all of the people on the web in all of the muslim web sites saw the rigorousness and saw what was really happening with al qaeda that they were killing many more muslims than westerners in their attacks. finally, as a result of the work we were doing, when the documents that were captured when osama bin laden was killed, the decision was made to give those documents over to the combat terrorism center where they were declassified so we could look in detail about what was happening and the state of mind of osama bin laden as he
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was trying to get control of al qaeda as it got more and more diffuse and more and more attacking of civilians. so in fact, probably the best credit to this and i'll play this just briefly. this is the number one person in al qaeda, at this time he was number two, that spent many of his videos and this is how they communicate. this is an actual al qaeda video. mostspeak over it because of you don't understand the arabic. he is reading and this is their video they got from our website. they've got some very good video people there in al qaeda and talked about the challenge that is we were presenting to them. as i tell my cadets, if the number one guy in al qaeda is reading our stuff, you should read your homework too.
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so with that, i can talk more in detail about the future of counterterrorism. begeneral, it's going to with a lot less money. as you can see this is the federal budget. most of the federal budget is on entitlements, but the largest part of the discretionary budget is in defense. that is going to continue to be reduced. this has gone down from half of the federal budget to 20% of the federal budget so as president obama met with the defense leaders a year ago this january, he talked about the defense strategy moving forward. again, i want to leave plenty of time for questions and answers. but briefly talked a lot about leveraging as we're down sizing,
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leveraging the people, probably having fewer people as the army and marine corps are cutting down, maintaining our dominance in critical areas like sea, space and cyberspace. but continuing to engage in shaping operations with regard to combating terrorism, but continuing to engage in shaping operations with regard to combating terrorism, recognizing that we're not going to be able kill our way out of this but it's going to be a combination of all the aspects of power and others that are going after the terrorists networks. we see this in the operations that have taken place throughout the middle east, in the philippines. and various parts of africa and becomes an important part of what we're doing. the final slide that i'll show you is of remington's stampede portrait. the stampede is what we talk to our cadets about, about the
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challenges of the uncertainty they will be facing as soldiers in a counterterrorism environment. it shows this environment they are facing is not precise and orally. -- orderly. the leader they have to be is exemplified by the stampede and the circumstances are frequently confusing. the rain is blowing sideways, there is dark and ominous clouds and seems like it's getting barely brighter as he goes forward. well on behalf of the people up at west point, i want to tell you it's been our pleasure and
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honor to be able to teach the cadets that are there that are understanding more and more of what they have to confront with regard to terrorism and terrorists and they are up to that task. last summer my son happened to be graduating with the class of 2012. the class of 2012 picked for their class motto for more than ourselves. i think that that reflects the generation of young men and young women that are coming to the military academy at west point and all of the other service academies or enlisting in the military services. they are the best that our nation has to offer and it has been our pleasure at west point to be able to educate them. i hope that i've conveyed to you a little bit of what we talked to them about and what we're doing in the combating terrorism center. thank you very much. [applause]
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[inaudible]>> yes. >> i would like your take on the advantages of the -- [indiscernible]
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what do you forsee as the way that the issue of narcotics will unfold in the next few years? >> just to restate the question in case it did not come through, the challenge of narcotics and drugs in the way forward. it is in fact, a critical issue and a huge problem because drugs are one of the largest industries, if you will, in afghanistan. there have been varies attempts on drugs -- at eradicate itself of pot fields. in general, these are my personal observations not necessarily those of government officials, most of the drugs ratification programs imposed by outside forces are usually not very effective.
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the reason they are not very effective is because if you're just eradicating poppy fields you are getting upset farmers who are the people you are trying to win on your side with regard to counterinsurgency. on the other hand, to have a program with alternative crops, replacing poppies with other kind of crops that can be legally grown, even though they don't have the profit margins subsiding that seems to be effective. the only thing that has worked, last year in april of 2011 was an operation that was going after the producers after they paid for the narcotics before it got transported out of
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afghanistan. so you're targeting the people who are purchasing it and that can be done in a much more focused area. also focusing on the precursor chemicals that are necessary to convert the poppy into narcotics has also been important. it is something that the afghan government is trying to address. they do have a counter narcotics program. it has had mixed results and it is going to continue to be a problem. it really has to be something that has to be addressed both within afghanistan and internationally. certainly from the western previous -- perspective reducing the price of drugs would be a huge contribution as well.
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>> the chief council has been asking when the war will be more or less ended and when title x authority will be removed and replaced with alesser authority. do you see a day that will come? >> i think that -- good question. jay johnson who was the general council who commented about when the authorities would change because we've been conducting, again, armed conflict against armed terrorists. i think it will be different in different spaces and different areas. whether you are dealing with ungoverned spaces in parts of
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africa, yemen, afghanistan, in the philippines and each of those have to have a different -- the national command authority, the president, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state and intelligence officials have to have the flexibility to use the appropriate tool with the appropriate reporting procedures back to congress and all of us as the american people. i think there will be probably some aspect of counterterrorism that continues to be carried out for a long period of time. again, the president can also constrain what areas and what places those forces are going to be while still being able to operate under the other kinds of authorities, the law enforcement authorities would take place. the fact that we continue to
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have ongoing threats against the united states, the fact that we have people who are trying to come into this country and trying to radicalize others both here as well as europe it means it will be a problem, i think for the future. todoesn't mean you're going have title 10 operations across the world but i think there will still be a need for authorities to be able to -- to exercise by the secretary of defense and the president and others. >> i am the director at am and also the founder of cyber security department. my question is on cyber warfare. what is being planned ahead since our new decade is now already busy with cyber warfare
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and i have not heard you nmentoin that. i am sure lots is being done. the students we are educated are anxious to know if there are job opportunities for them. >> if you are advising your students i think cyber -- the question was what the future of cyber and cyber terrorism is. i think there will be more tons with regard to offense, defense, and putting together a network of people that are involved. the secretary of the army has established a center, the army cyber center at west point that is going to focus on cyber, maybe you can get the director of that to come down next year to talk about it. but as we have looked at this,
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it is going to be different from the kinds of things i talked about. it is public with regard to governmental authorities and very much private industry are involved and all of us have an important part to play with regard to cyber defenses. right now a lot of the legislation is being worked out, i would point you to secretary petraeus' speech that he gave in new york city. it was one of the best articulation that you have to have a partnership where you need a public/private partnership with both, the best we can bring from government and the best we can bring from private industry as well as the best practices from education. that is really where a lot of the cutting-edge developments are coming from. the other aspect of it is the threat is frequently not just from government agencies or terrorist agencies but private individuals.
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i'm sure you have studies the -- studied the individuals, could have hugely negative affects with regard to cyber. >> in trying to understand what is going on in the world, i feel like the rider in the stampede. could you recommend -- [indiscernible] -- a few trusted souces they make -- may keep up with to
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understand issues you deal with? >> that is a good question. i think being informed in audiences like this is kind of people you bring in is important. i would put an advertisement for you our own stuff. if you go to our website you can sign up there and get the c.t.c. -- in fact, here is a picture. i don't have it. it is our monthly paper that goes and analyzes the different areas of terrorism. it is one of the sources. there are some very good journalists that are out there
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that are covering these. most of the top journalists from the top newspapers, like "the new york times" and "the washington post" they cover these in the fair amount of detail on a current basis. and many of the others cover this in more detail as well. there is a lot of information out there but with a little bit of scratching the surface you can get to more of the details. >> good evening. i would like you to speak about the counter terrorism strategies in somolia and the efforts in nigeria. thank you.
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>> well, the efforts in somalia -- yeah the question was how effective how are efforts been in the region of africa both in somalia and mali. they have been mixed. to get back to previous question, there is a magazine called "the prism" that google at the national defense university. it had an article that detail this and i'm not an expert in this area so i will fall back on others. it has said that it has been mixed but has been -- by concentrating on building up some of the local forces in mali it has been helpful in terms of national forces.
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that has been less successful in somalia. beyond that i'm not an expert in that area in particular so i would not want to go too much past that. see if there is another question. >> you said we mine internet pages. how do we know we are not being played and fed misinformation? >> good question. we're following these things reason to internet are we sure we're not being played? that is one of the reasons we do this in an academic and rigorous way. we publish all of our results. when we get downloaded documents we'll right a 150-page report then we will publish those documents in english and area big.
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we'll invite scholars to read that and see if we're getting the story right or if we're getting played and we have it wrong. it is the rigger that we put behind it. we have everybody looking at these sorts of things to see if -- if we're just looking at a website, we don't write things on a daily basis or hitting a newspaper's person deadline. but we look at this and we want to make sure we don't take it out of context so we combine it with other literature written out there. could we get some of this stuff wrong? we possibly could but hopefully it will be picked up by others. if you make the assumption that the truth is on our side and
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more information is better and getting that information out there is critical, then you guard against being played so to speak. i would rather have the information get out there and told we're wrong and have the information corrected than not have the public discussion that you need on the issues. >> good evening. i am a studfent up the street. my question is on religion. how big of a role does religion play in the overall aspect of terrorism. how big of a r ole has it played in the u.s.'s policy on counterterrorism? >>the question is what is the
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role of religion either from the terrorist perspective or the combating counterterrorism perspective. from the terrorist perspective what we have mostly found is that adherence from al qaeda broadly misinterpreted and taken extremist views and perverted islam as a religion to be able to coerce and otherwise control their followers in doing things that are very much what the tenants of islam would say. we quoted a scholar and others that talked about the prohibition of killing innocent civilians. when they talk about the majority of people being
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killed by al qaeda are muslims contradicted the religion of islam and pointed out they were violating the tenet. so in general, helping to highlight the perversion of the religion in terms of the information we are doing has been helpful and that is what was done with the deadly vanguards report. it identified the problems that al qaeda was having when it was killing civilians it violates what many of the other moderate, main stream muslim scholars were saying. with regard to the counterterrorism focus, it depends upon where you are.
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again, it is interesting because from the united states we have separation of church and state so it doesn't play in the things that we're doing. but you are in the government of the islamic republic of afghanistan which is in fact, an islamic republic. so islam is an important part of the host nation that we're in afghanistan and it does influence the policies of the nations we're working with. so understanding the religious components both on the terrorist side and the counterterrorist side is particularly important. very good question. >> i wand to hear your comments about -- i want to hear your comments about what is -- -- we
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have media reports of friendly fire attacks. we have had an increasing number of green attacks on our forces. we have had evidence that has been present that the afghans are unreliable and by our standards they are untrainable. what was your experience? >> good question. assessment of the insider threat and the afghan military. the insider threat is clearly one of the biggest challenges that we have faced. i think when people write the history of this and they go back, it started out with a very small element of insiders that were motivated by -- either people that were imitating
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afghan soldiers or afghan soldiers themselves. then the taliban realized this is a very effective tactic. so they infiltrated people and had them attack other afghan soldiers or they turned afghan soldiers to be able to attack the military. it is clearly one of the most significant, negative developments over the last year. my recollection is there have been about 60 attacks over the last year. so many, many additional procedures, counter intelligence sort of things to weed out people and all the procedures that can be taken to protect soldiers are being taken. again, it is a combat environment which is extremely
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difficult to be able to deal with. now, with regard to the effectiveness of the afghan forces, by our standards, it is difficult to assess them at any measurable level. it is one of the things to guard against is the mirror image that will they have to be as successful as nato forces or u.s. forces at any particular point. the afghan forces and when you look in detail at many of the reports, many of them with some assistance are able to conduct
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combat operations. a recent report in december talked about the varies readiness of afghan military units and afghan police units. both had expanded in capacity but they still have a long ways to go. they are out there tragically fighting and dying for their own country at a much, much larger rate than the u.s. many of them are doing a good job, but again, the results depend from unit to unit and area to area. a couple of good examples when they had spectacular attacks, i was there in april of 2012 when there was a big attack. those were entirely done by the afghan special police units they are going responded and they responded very effectively killing 43 counterinsurgents. it got a lot of press but they did demonstrate they had the capacity.
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you have to look in detail at what is happening in each circumstance. i think we're about at the end of the time. sir? go ahead. >> [indiscernible] [applause] >> thank you, sir. >> coming up on c-span, vice
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president joe biden talks about the administration's review on federal gun laws. that is followed by senator jay rockefeller's retirement announcement. tomorrow on c-span, governors on the east coast talk about their state of the state addresses. we will have governor cuomo, governor mcdonnell, governor malloy, and governor chris christie. that is on saturday here on c- span. today, vice president joe biden met with representatives from the videogame industry as part of the white house gun task force. they are leading a review on federal gun laws. he will deliver recommendations to the president by tuesday. he was joined by eric holder and kathleen sebelius. this is just under 15 minutes.
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>> let me begin by thanking you all for being here. i know you came a long way and you have an awful lot on your plate. secondly, i want you to know what we have been doing. and maybe we can have a longer and larger conversation. as a consequence of what i think we would all agree, this consequence for the american people unlike anything i have seen or felt, we have been around a long time, there have been a number of tragedies that have occurred, national catastrophes. but i have never seen any thing that has shocked the country or the american people like six and
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seven year-old kids being riddled with bullets in a classroom neighborhood in an area that was considered to be immune to this kind of behavior and done everything that seemed able to be done to protect children in that school. and so, how the president asked me, because i spent some much time on these issues, relating particularly to fire arms, whether or not we would. and admittedly, it is quick end of the matter of less than a month, put together a set of proposals or directions that we could move the federal government and enhance the possibility, lessen the possibility that this will happen again.
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we know that there is no silver bullet. there is no seat belt you can put on to ensure that we will not be in this circumstance again, but i ask the cabinet to come together, the attorney general, the board of education, health and human services. we know this is a complex problem and there is no single answer. and frankly, we don't even know if some of the things people think back then is what is going on. i want you to know that you have not been singled out for help. but we have asked a lot of people. i want to give you a sense of the meetings we have had so far. we met with the law enforcement community that has one perspective.
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there is a wide range, we don't always agree. anything from weapons to preventative action that can be taken. we met with the medical community, the american academy of family physicians. at the american academy of neurologists, more than a dozen. we met with at-risk groups, child advocacy communities from boys and girls clubs, the ymca, the after-school alliance. the domestic violence prevention community, they have various views with legal and justice organizations. civil rights organizations, participation in national
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service organizations from one club to the rotary club. youth groups, campus groups, peace groups. gun safety advocates from the brady group to the major gun safety organizations. the educators that are groping for answers, the mental health community including the american academy that we have been through, it is not an extensive study. but the literature that the staff has been working. much of what we already had,
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trying to devour. the most interesting meeting is with an interfaith group. not only the traditional mainstream protestant churches, the catholic council of bishops, evangelicals. they are reluctant to engage in is because it is may be an attack on a cultural thing related to gun ownership and the like. all these groups with the muslim community, the hindu community, etc.. it was really a fascinating discussion. and then we matt with sportsmen groups that is distinct from but
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-- met with sportsment groups that is distinct from -- do not disagree with the gun owner groups. they have a different perspective that includes the blue water strategies, the outdoor industries. with a gun owners and the marines and troops, headed by a retired major general to fire arms and export roundtable. the independent firearms owners. there is a difference among them as well. we also met with retailers because of background checks and the like. they sell an awful lot of
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weapons. we met with colleagues in hollywood yesterday. the entertainment industry, as it relates to film and broadcasting. we will be meeting with technology experts. a lot could change, if every gun purchase could be fired by the person that purchased it. we would be unable to be fired. if that were available on every weapon sold, there is significant evidence that it may very well have curtailed what would have happened in connecticut. the young man had access to his mother's arsenal. i remember meeting with social
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education, and you in the video gaming industry. i come to this meeting with no judgment. you all know the judgments other people have made. we had a very productive meeting yesterday with the broadcast and film industries that have very constructive ideas as to how they can help. assessing the impact, if any, on behavior of certain behaviors. we are anxious to see if there
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is anything you can suggest to us that would hope to manage the possibility -- if we can only save one kid's life because of the consequence. we have a problem beyond the massacres. columbine, connecticut, 10,000 people a year gunned down in our cities. a different motives, reasons, explanations. it is a real problem. one of the things that i know of no way to gather empirical data on and you all may, make an analogy to when we first started dealing with the issue of crack cocain in the early 80's, coming
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from the bahamas. although i was senior, i was not equal to the daniel patrick moynihan that was a great mind. the front page of the newspaper. one of the mafia bosses was gunned down in a barber chair and riddled with machine gun fire. it made the front page of every newspaper in america. he referenced a story where an entire family were murdered execution-style.
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it made page 57 in the new york times. there is no measure that i am aware of to determine whether or not there is a coursing of our culture. i do not know the answer to that question and i do not know what impact it would have. i wanted to tell you what we are about. at the end result is that i would be making a recommendation as a consequence of long, drawn- out hearings. there is an awful lot of research that has been lying around over the past 10 years with recommendations on having a federal weapons trafficking statute universal background
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checks for making more widely available mental health assistance. i would be submitting to the president on how to proceed. we get it done by then. i just wanted to fill you guys on what it is. we had a very straightforward and productive meeting. >> tomorrow on "washington journal" two different perspectives on climate change. our guests are david doniger and myron ebell.
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then we will talk about senators who are investigating cia sources and their role in the movie "zero dark 30.thirty." later, a look at the fda new rules. "washington journal" life at 7 a.m. eastern here on c-span. ♪ hollywood's most famous movie stars leave the film capital to help the government. all of them are part of a contingent of celebrities giving their time and talent to the national war effort. >> what we want to look out -- ical popular culture presented the war. how was it were presented for
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the 1940s? how was it prevented in -- presented in comic books from the 1940s? how was it presented in a tin pan alley in music from the 1940s? >> this weekend on "american history tv" popular culture on world war ii. saturday night at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. eastern on c-span 3. >> today senator jay rockefeller said he will not seek reelection when his current term ends. he was first elected to the senate in 1984. he also served as a governor of west virginia from 1977-1985.
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>> thank you, sharon. so incredibly much. a perfect wife, by far, the most popular rockefeller in west virginia. and the love of my life. we ask you to join us here today to share my plans for the future. i will get right to them. i have decided not to run again at the conclusion of this term. not now, but in 2014. i hope each of you can understand that this is an entirely personal decision. here and here. it is not a political decision and it is not easy.
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as i approached 50 years of nonstop public service, precluding time with the children and sharon. i consider the ways for in life. there are many other ways, and i know deep within me that in 2014, it is the right time for me to recalibrate and find a new balance. public service, my family, and west virigina.
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i came as an untrained social worker back in 1964. i actually begun my public service four years before that, working for the peace corps and the department of state. frankly, i was in search of a clear and powerful purpose. i wanted something that was so compelling and obsessive that it would fill me out completely. i did not necessarily wanted to be complicated, but i wanted it to be hard. and living in west virginia, you gave me what i wanted most. a spiritual sense of mission.
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it is strong today and 10 years ago. i found my calling. it was here. it is so incredibly hard- working, never shy away from physical tasks or of the old or uphill battle. like the proud work of a coal miner with a mind for a better future. that is what i found. real people, skeptical of me for a long time. and truly giving. they gave me more than i ever could have given them.
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every day and every minute since. west virginia has my home and the people of west virginia has been my life's work. it deserves nothing less than everything you have to bring to bear, and that is what i have given it. i have been driven to make life better for people. it is not a slogan for me. it is the truth. there is a tremendous amount of greatness in west virginia. there is also hurt. for 50 years, 30 in the senate, whatever could make a difference for our state and our people.
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i fought to lift the heaviest burden for those that have forgotten, there are many, that deserve better. every child deserves a fair shot in life. 15 years ago, i wrote the children's health insurance program. last year alone, it meant 40,000 children in west virginia and 8 million nationwide were able to see a doctor when they needed to that otherwise they would not have been able to. [applause] i also wrote the program that is providing connectivity in classrooms so that there can be
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a hookup to the internet. this is back in 1996. mpia snowt with oly from maine. back then, 14% of our classrooms, and now it is 92%. it has been a world -- [applause] a world of difference for opportunities and curiosity that our children and families have. i pushed hard to establish a bedrock of financial support, not only for the middle class, but also for the working poor of this day in this country. i am on the finance committee. i can do that.
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i work to expand the earned income tax credit which is one of the great givers of money to families that need it. and to defend college location credits so that hundreds of thousands have a fighting chance to make ends meet and to get ahead. there is no substitute for a good job. so i did everything in my power, as you know, to bring toyota to west virginia. with 1200 workers and a total investment of $1.3 billion, it is the second-largest investment in our state's history. [applause]
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20 other japanese companies followed. because of our incredible work force and because i never stop asking for more. that is what you do. you keep pushing, asking, hoping. you don't always get a yes, but you certainly don't get one if you don't fight for it. i pushed to make coal mining safer. in one of the peak moments of my career, i threatens to keep the senate over christmas, looking at me in total shock. i meant it to keep them over christmas if it did not pass the coal act. [applause]
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i simply would not abide the injustice of an industry going back on the promise of lifetime health care for its retirees. something that really goes all the way back to a deal that john lewis and harry truman made in 1946. the united mine workers and i insisted on a new law that we called the coal act protecting 200,000 miners and their families today. we actually helped avert a nationwide coal strike in 1994. in that fight, and so many others, we have been proud to stand with the working men and women of america. steelworkers, teachers, nurses, and everyone deserves a fair wage and a safe place to work with a basic health care. [applause]
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our country cannot be as great as it should be unless our workers voices are heard and respected. not only by everybody in general, but certainly policymakers. i am just a single-minded about comprehensive health-care reform. i know is not particularly popular in west virginia, but it's ok. because of my fingerprints are all over it, i know is good and i know it will benefit west virginia more than any other state. [applause] it is so incredibly complex, not just the 17% of gdp has people like to say, but it is so complex and involved and interests of people, nuances that we just had to do something about it.
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everybody talked about it, nobody had done anything about it. i worked with the pepper commission is for two years, we rode a perfect long-term care policy and acute care policy and it was dead on arrival. i worked hard for the clinton health care bill, and it did not make it. this one came along, and i was determined to help make it happen. for the simple reason that should be a right and not a privilege. the affordable health care act is the way the 32 million americans in more than 300,000 of west virginians will be able to afford health insurance, truth, honesty, and we did not have the money to do it all, by the way. and so some of those folks won't get it until 2019.
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but they will get it. for the first time. and i sit back and i think of all the fights and the anger and the amendments that came out and went down. i am just so proud that we saw it through to the end. the insurance companies do not like it. which makes me very proud. [laughter] because they're going to have to stop dumping people when they get sick. it is interesting in congress because you really have your fingers on information. always from a staff. and they just did that. somebody had been playing all their lives. -- paying premiums all their li
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ves. they get some kind of disease and then they have been cut off. and who is to know? who is to care? we went after that with a lot of hearings in the congress committee at changed completely when the bill. you remember the public auction that was so popular and still is. the problem was not the public option, we just could not getany votes. do you walk away from that? no. you look for a new vehicle and it turned out to be the medical loss ratio. i love it not just for what it does but because nobody has any idea what it is so they can't attack it frontally unless they
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know something about it. insurance companies will have to stop dumping people when they get sick and stop spending more on fancy offices that medical care. because we say that they have to spend either 85% or 80% depending on their size of their premium money on health care. that health care gets measured and analyzed by hhs and other groups. if they fall short and spend more than the 15% or 20%, they have to pay a rebate to the premium payers. millions of dollars have come to west virginians and more than that across the country in rebates. imagine getting a rebate from an insurance company.
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that protect people from financial ruin. finally, it is law. [applause] just like the act that companies took to every single court available. but when the supreme court ruled that they were wrong and we were right, so to speak. that was that. the same thing happened on health care. everybody fighting every way that they know to chip away at the edges. the supreme court gets a hold of it and happily sustains it. and so is there, forever. i could go all day, probably your worst fear, about helping
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veterans and seniors living in dignity. after 9/11, it was an extraordinary experience to invest in science, technology, aviation, infrastructure. we put $50 million into the airport. i don't think many people know that, but i am telling you that. making its larger and safer. i can talk about the exhilarating fights as chairman of the committee to make our cars more efficient, and the internet more safe. the internet is a large and a looming problem and has everything to do with cyber security, something we seem not to be able to address in congress. we are leveraging the best in government to help people and
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solve problems, always keeping at the forefront. that is what we will do in the next two years in the senate. we have the debt ceiling coming up, and i want to be part of that fight. i will pour myself into it because there always is so much importance to be put into it. i have every intention of keeping up this intensity. i will never stop working for the people that meant so much to me. and there is another great passion in my life, certainly right here. in front of me. including valerie, that has the flu. don't talk to her too much. sharon and our family have not had enough of me.
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maybe they don't feel that way, but i do. it is time, pretty soon, for me to do public service in new ways and for sharon and our family to be my first priority. that is the way it is got mr. -- for me. i will close with heartfelt gratitude for you coming here today, gone in so many different ways over the years.
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to my family whose support is unparalleled in his encouragement is felt. to the advisers i could have ever imagined, so many of you out there that changed schedules to get here for this day, it honors me greatly. to my brilliant and compassionate staff. and they are endlessly dedicated to our state and people in need. we are a family of common interest and nothing stops us. i want so much to tell you about each one of the staff, person by person.
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i can't do that, but i really want to. to the west virginians that took me in, transformed me, and supported me, whose home is and always will be mine, i will always be proud to fight for no matter what the cost. thank you. [applause] tomorrow on c-span, watched governors on the east coast deliver their state of the state addresses. you'll hear from andrew cuomo, bob macdonald, ban malloy of connecticut, and governor chris kriski of new jersey.
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next, a look at the impact of the so-called fiscal cliff legislation on the remainder of the 2013 defense department budget. from the center for strategic and budget torrey assessments, this is just over one hour. >> good morning, everyone. i am todd harrison. thank you for coming out this morning. the background we are releasing this morning is, what the fiscal clift deal means for defense. at what i will cover today is pretty dense material. i will acknowledge that first. i will step through just a section of it that deals with the sequestration and talk about what specifically changed. i will walk through the numbers and show how the numbers changed. we will talk about what this
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means for defense going forward in the next few months in the long term as well. i will start here. the section of the law that deals with sequestration is one page long. this is one text. it is one page. it is very dense and does a lot of tricky things. there are three things this lot changed about sequestration that are really relevant for defense. it to reduce the amount of the fiscal year 2013 penalty sequester. this is by far the largest. this is the part that is a direct result of the super committee's failure to meet reduction in 2011. the underlying part here reduces the amount of the total sequester, defense and nondefense, by $24 billion. that is what the nine zeros are. half is divided between national defense and non- defense, the rest of the discretionary budget.
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that is a $12 billion reduction for defense. the second thing it does is change is the timing of both sequesters. there are two parts to the sequestration. one is a penalty sequestration, and another is an after session sequester. it used to be the penalty sequester would occur on january 2. the after a session sequester was only two weeks later on a january 15. this change that. now the penalty sequester will occur on march 1. the other will occur on march 27. it just happens that march 27 is also the date that the current continuing resolutions that are funding the government will expire. by that date congress will have either had to enact a new continuing resolution or a full year appropriations bill, otherwise the government will be shut down.
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>> did they plan that or is that a bad coincidence? what i think that is well planned. by that. i think we should have some other measures and the fact. it goes in and makes sure that even after the penaltie sequester, whatever level of funding was appropriated sits under the revised budget cap. it is very hard to get around the cuts without changing the law. >> what is the difference between the sequester and the penalties sequester? >> the penalty sequester is the initial cut as a result of the super committee failure. it is unique to fiscal year 2013. it really is a penalty because the super committee failed. it happens first. the after session sequester is basically the enforcement of budget cuts. -- budget caps.
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if you are already under the budget cap, if congress passes an appropriations bill by march 27 that leaves the department under the budget cap there will be no need for a sequester. it is a checkup at that point. all future years, there will just be in after session sequestered. if you exceed the cap, you get cut. >> \[indiscernible] >> i will get to that in the next slide. it changed the date of both sequesters. if this was not complicated enough, this is where it gets really complicated. it changed the budget cap and the categories with an exception built in there. the way the law was written before, it divided the
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discretionary budget into security and a non security. in the security category was the department of defense, homeland security, veterans affairs, and the national nuclear security administration. that made up the security budget. the non security was everything else. then the law said, if the super committee fails, we are changing the categorization is. so they changed it. after the super committee fail, the definition of the categories changed. now security is the 2005 budget function. 95.8% of that budget function is the department of defense. there are small amounts and therefore a national nuclear security administration and small amounts of money in the department of justice that our defense related. it is basically dod.
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after the super committee failed, it narrow the definition of these -- security category. this becomes important because that changes the cap. instead of having a cap that was $686 billion, after the super committee fail, you had a narrow definition of the security category, it was only a $586 billion cap. this comes in and says, i will do two things. i will reduce the budget caps. for fiscal year 2013 only and only after the after session sequester, i would change the definition of the security category back to the original definition. it is only for the after session sequester, not the penalty sequester. it is only in 2013 there refer to the definition. why is that important? they reduce the budget cap by $2 billion.
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by going back to the after session up sequester, going back to the broader definition of security, they have widened the pool of resources over which the budget cap applies. they have diluted the effect on dod a bit by doing that. that actually means that dod will not be cut as much because of that. i hope that makes sense. any questions about that? >> they knew this when they did the cr they violated the defense cap, right? >> they are even more in violation of it because they reduce the cap. there are still in violation of it. they reduced the cap. the broader security category is more in violation, but the amount of cut is less to dod then it would have been. this protects dod a little better.
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they come from the other parts of the discretionary budget, they are taking a slightly greater cut because dot is taking a lesser cut. now, i will walk through the members of this and what it means for the department of defense in particular. on the left-hand side, under the original sequester, we are starting out with a base dod budget under the continuing resolution is $534 billion. the penalties sequester, the part that would be applied to dod, $54.2 billion. once you have the after sequester, you have to end up -- the budget cap for dod would be $474 billion. you need to cut another $10.4 billion to get under the cap. the total cut from both of these combined is $62.8 billion
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by my calculations. that would have happened on the penalties sequester on january 2 and the after session on the 15. with the changes we have outlined, we still have under the continuing resolution, we are up $534 billion. the penalty sequester has been reduced for the overall national defense category. it is a $12 billion reduction. the part of that apply to dod, you end up with a $40.9 billion penalties sequester. that is better than the $52 billion from before. the budget cap actually -- look at that, it is a lot better and actually ends up being $486 billion is the budget gap. the difference between where you are after the panel to sequester and its revised budget gap is only about $7.2 billion. i will point out to you hear
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that $7.2 billion, i put a margin of error on that of probably plus or minus $2 billion. the reason for that is to calculate the after session sequester under the revised law. you actually have to know what all of the other parts of the discretionary budget are being cut by under sequestration. my analysis, i only focus on the defense part of the budget. i do not focus on the 2% cut a central medicare that sequestration causes and all of the a sentence that exists a in -- in medicare that sequestration causes. this is my best estimate for what this ends up being. keep in mind, there is a margin of error in there. if i am missing some exemptions that might exist in other parts of the defense budget.
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under the old sequester, dod would have taken a total cut of $62.8 billion. under the new when it is $40 billion. in comparison, the comptroller said on monday by his calculations the old was $62 billion in the new was $45 billion. i think that is close enough. i think we would both admit that our calculations of the new sequester are not quite precise yet. the other factor to keep in mind and all of this is when you are calculating the amount of sequester, you have to know some things you would not necessarily know until right up until the time it happens. when you to calculate the percentage reduction across all accounts -- it did you have a question? ok. if you go to calculate the percentage, under the original sequester and under the continuing resolution, the penalty would be 9.6% reduction. after that, you would have an
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after sequester of 2.1%. those are not added. there are applied on top of that. that is what they do not add to the total year of 11.5%. your total would be 11.5%. under the revised sequester, the panel to sequester has gone down to 7.5%. the after session sequester has also gone down to 1.5%. total reduction now is 8.8%. about 9%. one of the uncertainties in calculating this is to know the percentage reduction, you have to know the and obligated balances in all of the accounts. -- un obligated balances in all of the accounts. we do not know that until that happens because it depends if dod happens to sign a contract on february 28 that obligates another $1 billion, then you will not necessarily know that contract is going to be signed
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until it happens. i think this is a pretty good estimate of what we are looking at under sequestration -- under the revised sequester. this is just for your notes here. what does the change do? what i have compared here on the top row is the president's fiscal year 2013 request. this is what he put in his budget request that came out almost this time last year. the second line is what the department of defense annual budget would have been a -- this is the base discretionary budget. the second line is what it would have been under the original sequester. the third line is what it would be now under the revised sequester. you see the amount of the funding defense would have is higher because the sequester is not as deep. in fiscal year 2014 it is actually lower. this is part of how they pay
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for the delay. the total reduction in sequestration was $24 billion, half a for defense and half for non-defense. this was supposed to be a deficit reduction bill. they said, of the $24 billion, half of it will come from this change in the tax code, something they are doing with roth iras will cause an increase of revenues of $12 billion. the other half are paying for by reducing the budget caps. the reduce the budget caps $2 billion on the security side and $2 billion on the non security side. in f why 14 they are using the other definition. they reduced it by $4 billion in defense and $4 billion non- defense. that adds up to $12 billion a in reduction in caps. it actually gets reduced by $4 billion more a in fiscal year
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2014. after that the numbers come back up and start to grow with inflation. are the same as they would have been from fiscal year 2015 until 200021 they are the same as the would have been under the original sequester. >> \[indiscernible] >> if you look back and you adjust for inflation, under the revised sequester it will cut to $485.7 billion. that would leave the department of defense budget slightly higher than it was in 2007, about a billion dollars higher than it was in 2007. previously under the other sequester it would have gone down to $471 billion. that would be slightly below the fiscal year 2007 level, closer to the 2006 level.
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>> you are talking this budget, so there is a huge complication here. >> this is the base discretionary defense budget. or funding is interesting. i will go back here. -- war funding is interesting. when you are comparing how much funding is left, oco funding does not count. if you have a regional war related funding, -- if you have war related funding, you do not get a sequester out of it. to complicate matters, when you are cutting, with your base budget exceeds the cap, the war funding is mixed into the accounts. when you are calculating your reduction, the were funding as part of what is being cut. it is not exempt from the cuts. does not count against the budget caps. that is the distinction.
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military personnel is the opposite. military personnel funding is exempt from the cuts. it does cut against the caps. >> when you go back to when you said the $24 billion was paid for. have presumably by the rock ira an increase in revenue, the other half i am lost. it sounds like instead of making cuts they just shrink the amount of cuts that were previously expected. >> the reduce the budget cap. they pushed in fiscal year 2013, they shifted the cuts by changing the cap and definition of security, they shifted it on non-dod accounts.
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it posted out to that year. -- pushed it out to that year. >> back to personal accounts. the claim was that personnel was exempted from sequester. you say it is counted under the cap. does that mean they can be reduced? >> they are still exempt from the cuts, it counts against the cap. the revised based dod budget cap, $486 billion. i think it is about $140 billion is included when you are comparing and seeing if the base budget exceeds the cap. if the budget exceeds the cap and requires a cut, all other accounts get cut except military personnel. >> it is increased from everything else. >> from operations and maintenance, procurement, research and development, military construction, family housing.
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all of the other accounts get cut. the other thing to point out is, that did not change -- the military personnel and to did not change under this the way the cuts have to be applied the a uniformed percentage across all the accounts. that did not change. this is still a blind, across the board cut. the third thing that did not change is the defense health program is not exempt, that is military health care, military hospitals for active duty service members and their dependents, for retirees and their dependents. those who get their health care, that budget, that is not exempt. it is part of o.n.m. so it will be cut and that budget will be about $3 billion. d.o.d. has to figure out a way
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to reduce that budget by $3 billion or reprogram the money from some where else and they will need congress if they are going to promise that kind of money. >> so the $8 billion that pushed out as part of this deal, it is part of the surplus and part of the cap. it is not separate cuts that would be targeted in any way? >> yeah, that is part of the cap, the cap got lower. so if you're budget remains above it you are cut down to that lower level now. in the f.y. 13 it will be across the board cut. there is no way to avoid it at this point unless congress changes this law. in f.y. 14 if this stays in effect, d.o.d. and congress will know ahead of time what the cap is for that year. they will know that budget has
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to be $475.2 billion or less. they will know that and they can appropriate a level of funding within that. then there will be no sequester, there will not be untargeted cuts across the board. >> thank you. the sequester, in terms of administration of these funds, what is the impact, for example, in contracts and employee furloughs, is that an accounting thing or does that have an impact on how d.o.d. manages funding? >> this will a real impact if this goes into effect. first thing we'll see is d.o.d. will have to start furloughing civilian employees. i did some calculations on
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this, the 8.8% reduction they have to take, the overall budget for d.o.d. civilian employees -- these are not contractors or uniform military these are civilian who work for the department of defense. >> so civil service? >> yes. there are about 91,000 who work for the d.o.d. in a civilian capacity. the budget for these personnel are about $70 billion a year those will have to be cut by 8.8% under the revised sequester. that cut comes off the total level of funding for the year. you only have seven months remaining in the fiscal year to administer that cut. by march 1, d.o.d. will have spent five months worth of the money in those accounts. so they have to make up that
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8.8% reduction in the remaining seven months of the year. that means you have to reduce your payroll expenses for the remainder of the year by 15%. if you're going to do that, err young going to do it through furloughs that means you have to furlough virtually every d.o.d. civilian for the maximum amount of time you can under the law which is one month. so virtually every d.o.d. civilian employee has to be furloughed for one month in the remaining seven months of the fiscal year. that is one of the first things we are likely to see. the other impact are similar to the original sequester. d.o.d. will have 8.8% less funding in all accounts. so pick your favorite acquisition program and actually it breaks down further than that. there is an air force research funding line for that, that has
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to be cut by 8.8%. there is a navy funding program for it and that has to be cut by 8.8%. there is an air force procurement line has to be cut by 8.8%. pick another acquisition program, same thing. every will see their program cut by 8.8% if this stays in effect. now, what will be the effect of the industry is not an immediate effect because on march 1 if you walk into a factory all the work they are doing that the point is based on money that has been obligated already. that is not subject to the cut. it is just thing budget authority for that year that is subject to the cut. for the remaining seven modifies to year the accounts will not have as much money left over. they will have to delay contract works possibly until the next fiscal year.
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they may have to reduce quantity. if they have a contract signed that has options that they can exercise to buy additional quantities that means they will go back and renegotiate that contract and develop options at lower quantities. what happens then if you do a lower quantity the price goes up? the d.o.d. is paying whether or not through fixed price contracts or cost reimbursed contracts the d.o.d. is paying for the base, it supports it. so if you have raytheon missiles, would buy 9% fewer, we have less money for the fiscal year. we have a contract that says we will buy at about 200 purr year but if we go back to them and say we can't buy at that rate.
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they will say we have the fixed cost of my production line and you want to divide it by the missiles, the cost will go up. it will be more than that. the unit prices will go up. so the long-term effect on industry and on the d.o.d. it will reduce the d.o.d.'s purchasing power in the future. it will cause all sort of contract modifications and negotiations. it will cause a backlog of work. back to the first point, the civilian workers who process those contract modifications are going to be furloughed for one month at some point in the fiscal year. this is going to be a contracting nightmare for the d.o.d. >> yourself basically verifying
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what the pentagon is saying on the employees. when this first came out -- \[indiscernible] arere verifying that they not crying wolf here. >> my calculations can verify that it is virtually if not every single last person, it is nearly every person that is employed as a d.o.d. civilian would be if you are laid off for a month have to make up for the budget cuts. there are a few other alternatives that would give head room. they could basically, implement a hiring freeze and reduce their workforce, you know, by having a hiring freeze you have people leaving, and you don't
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hire anyone to replace them. that would give them morehead room. they can start laying off people. my understanding is that d.o.d. says that is a last resort. they don't want to make permanent reductions as a result of a temporary sequestration. >> i was surprised and i think that was a result that the d.o.d. did not do their detailed planning until late december. and they are coming to realize some of these immediate impacts late in the game. i think, you know it would be a good public service for the d.o.d. to continue the detailed planning and start to go public with it. before march 1, they should go ahead and publicly notify all of the civilian employees about the furlough plan.
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if sequestration happens they should tell people this is what is going to happen. go ahead and tell people, here's who will be furloughed in the first month, here's the second month. make that planning public, i think that will help inform the public debate so we can make a good decision as a nation about what we want to do. >> so i guess from the congress level appropriated from the defense view, is it the fact that pushing back the winds sequester would take effect that there is so much -- the amount of time left the year leaves you no choice to look at furloughs? are there other agencies that can cut travel or something like that so basically, by pushing this back there is only so many months to make this up
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that everyone has to be furloughed? >> it was true under the sequester as well. if the sequester took effect in october some furloughs would be necessary. ofon't think it is a matter so much -- yeah, i think it is a matter the cuts have to be executed. it doesn't give you flex ability to do smart things. things like travel budget that will be cut as well by 9%. so everything is going to take a hit. now, the option to help minimize some of the negative effects here, the d.o.d. can put together a reprogramming request. all of these have been cut by the same amount we want to go back and move some cuts around. we want to make deeper cuts to some accounts. that is something they should start working on now.
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start working on it in advance even if they don't make it public. if sequestration goes in effect i would hope they would go to congress with a reprogramming request. everyone glees the across the board cut don't make sense. here's our first shot to minimize the damage by reprogramming money. here's what we would like to do. >> on that reprogramming, it seems they were skeptical this week. was that political analysis or are there limitations in the law about how much they can do? >> it's not a matter of limitations in the law but it is limitation of what congress would be willing to go along with. and i think he raises a fair point. if you're doing a reprogramming
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request you're asking to cut some accounts even deeper. so accounts that have been cut by 9% you're asking to cut them deeper to restore money to other critical areas. there are a few things they have to do like the defense health program. they have to find $3 billion. so you look around the other accounts that have already been cut and try to come up with another $3 billion. if you want to reduce the amount of furloughs for civilians, you're talking about a big bill. in the neighborhood of a $6.5 million. upt's a lot of money to come with. there are major acquisition programs where this is going to be. particularly disruptive. it could severely impact, you know, these programs not just in the first year but years to come. and it will weaken d.o.d.'s negotiating position.
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the boeing refueling tanker, first of all, should mention we're still under a continuing resolution so that program like many other programs where funding was supposed to be ramped up it is stuck at last year's levels it is $1 billion short. if you add sequestration on top of that and you appropriate a higher level you're still left short. s we had a contract we signed with boeing and the rate we were going to buy those tankers and now you're cutting the funding and we can't keep up our end of the contract so d.o.d. has to renegotiate with boeing. it is reported that boeing bid they bid very competitively to get that contract. do you think we're in a good position to maintain such a competitive price or is boeing
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going to walk out in a better position perhaps not losing money on the contract anymore. there are some areas that it is going to be bad for d.o.d. if they have to receiver -- sequester these accounts. >> so the short term is on them. probably be a severe cut back in training and that sort of thing? >> some of the options you have to look at if you have live fire training exercises scheduled for the remainder of the year you can delay it to the next fiscal year. if you have major main tins of systems that you were set to begin you can delay that into the beginning of the next fiscal year. you can do a lot of delaying and you can get away with that perhaps in one year. but now you have a backlog building next year.
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if think stays in effect you have less funding the year after that so the backlog starts to build. it will force you -- you can't do in the f.y. 13 but in f.y. 14 you have to make hard choices and reduce your structure, reduce your personnel, basically, shrink your military. you have to do it quickly. you have to down size your force which is not always the best and most informed options. >> going back to your exercise with the fueling tanker. is think there any particular service, army, navy, that is most vulnerable because of the number of acquisition programs they have that are at a key point right now? >> they are all vulnerable in different ways. i would not want to guess on which one. looking at the air force they have a number of programs that
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they say are critical to the future things like the tanker, things like the bomber, these programs are critical to the air force to recapitalize their equipment for the future and be better equipped for the future. all of those programs are in the early stages of the program so they are all vulnerable. you can go through the marine corps, or the army and they are probably in the same situation. >> two aspects, how bad are the penalties get for -- say you're going to renegotiate on bad terms you're going to pay penalties for breaking contracts, etc. that is potentially -- in order to cut $1 we have to pay $2.
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is there ways to gain when you sign contracts and what the obligated balance to mitigate some of the contracts. we're going to sign the contract at 12 o. 0 a -- 12:01 a.m. instead of 11:59 p.m. >> it no account is getting cut to zero, all of them are getting cut by 9% so you don't have to terminate anything. what you have to do is renegotiate the rate of which you're going to buy in the coming years. in terms of how you can gain the system, if you are a program manager for an acquisition program you have an incentive to get as much of your funding obligated as possible by march 1. once its obligated it is not subject to the sequestration cuts. if you're looking at this from a total d.o.d. perspective you
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have the opposite position. so the percentage, if there are significant amount of early obligation the percentage cuts to all the remainders will go up slightly. so you don't want freedom people to do that but if you're self-interested you would want to obligate as much of the funding as you can by march 1. it is hard to say if this is a result but we did see a lot of contracting activity in late november and december all the way up to december 28. heading up to the january 2 sequestration deadline that we just avoided so we may see a
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repeat of that. it may be even more of a flurry of contracting activity. yes? >> what does the d.o.d. have planning for the 2014 planning process? >> there's two real impacts on the f.y. 14 budget requests. it was supposed to come out in the first monday in february, so in a few weeks. you still have sequestration -- actually three problems. you still have sequestration lingering over you so you don't know if you'll be you cut by 9% this year. we're still under a continuing resolution so we don't know what the actually amount of f.y. 13 will be even without sequestration. the third problem is that the f.y. 14 budget cap has been reduced. so they planned for the old budget cap assuming that
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sequestration didn't occur. so it is higher than it would be under sequestration. now that budget cap has been reduced by $4 billion for defense. so they have to go at a minimum if they want to be in compliance with the budget cap. they have to go back to the budget request, which was basically finalized and find another $4 billion to cut. that would assume that sequester did not happen and it assumed that the f.y. 13 budget question -- request gets passed by congress. the problem you run into when are we going to have certainty about those things? are we going to have certainty by march 1? are we going to have certainty about the f.y. 13 funding? probably not until late march, at best. worst case scenario, we could go into sequestration then you have the uncertainty is the
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this congress going turn it off or not. we can be facing a government shutdown. there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty about the f.y. 13. >> the $4 billion that would be moved to f.y. 14 that would happen regardless if sequestration happens or not? >> yes. you have an initial cap. the f.y. 14 cap has been reduced by $4 billion. if sequestration goes into effect stays in effect that gets reduce. so if sequestration is avoided it stays less than what they were planning on. >> is there any doubt in your mind that across the board cuts would be at the level -- which
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is their understanding which is defined as e.p. or not? >> sequestration has happened before. it has been applied several times before. based on that precedent i would say it would be applied at the lowest level that congress appropriates money. that's what the law says. i don't see how they can interpret differently at this point. >> so not knowing -- maybe you know what they are going to do by march 1. so is there anything out there that would change the budget cap -- is that something that could be contemplated under any scenario? >> it is. if they come up with some sort of a deal to replace sequestration that deal could include changes to the budget cap in years. it could include that.
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so that is possible. >> for defense, does that mean it has to assign costs elsewhere and that would help defense and vice versa? >> it could work both ways. they could avert sequestration at the $500 billion over 12 years. they could avert that but they could change the budget caps to be higher for defense or lower for defense. part of the way they might pay for averting sequestration is by reducing the budget caps by some amount of that $500 billion and reducing other spending by some other amount or raising revenues to make up the difference. there are a lot of ways they can do it. you had a question? >> so we get about $10 billion less. is that better or worse --
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\[indiscernible] >> i think it is about the same overall. it is less time but it is a smaller cut. i think it is really -- they made it no better for defense, they made it no worse really. we're talking a difference of a few billion here. they did get less of a cut given the delay but not my much. i think this is still -- it's going create a real mess for d.o.d. to be clear i don't think this is the apocalypse. i don't agree with a lot of the over the top rhetoric that is coming out about this. i think it is a mess. i think it forces a lot of really stupid decisions. i think it is short-sighted. but it is not the end of the world, we will survive it if it happens.
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yes? >> if they manage to get a deal to avert sequestration there is still a lot of support for cutting defense. what do you envision would be a potential cut under that kind of a deal? would it make the situation very much different? in other words would it still be a mess for the fiscal year? >> if they came up with a deal to avoid sequestration, i think we would be looking at, you know, instead of a $500 billion cut over 10 years for defense we would be look at something around $200 billion to $300 billion. depending how they right it in there, if they right it as a gradual ramp down over time, that would be a lot better for the d.o.d. the way it is written the cuts are abruptly right now.
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if you have a gradual ramp down about 1% to 2% that would enable d.o.d. to make smart strategic choices about what they put in their budget every year. there are hard decisions that have to be made but it would be a lot better, more rational process. anything you can do to avoid this, you know, the across the board cuts would be a dramatic improvement for d.o.d. >> along the same lines, you talked about this, the 2% real cuts year over year having the same impact as the original sequester outline. >> it is about the same because the change here in the first two years was so small relative to the $500 billion.
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if you gradually reduce the defense bum from its current level at the adjusted rate over the rest of the decade you will achieve the same rate of deficit reduction under these budget caps. that is a rational approach and d.o.d. can do things that require time to achieve savings. there are things you can do if you have time. if you have to cut immediately you don't have time to do those things. for example, you can do another round of base closures and you can close bases and not just move them around. it still costs money upfront to shut down facilities to move personnel when you need to, to do some environmental renovations it saves you money upfront. but previous things have been
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successful in reducing facilities and bringing down the costs in the long run. so they are really saving you money. >> so in terms of the other all savings. >> right. the other thing to point out is the 2.2% annual decline over a decade it is pretty close to being in alignment with previous draw downs like we saw at the end of the cold war, the end of vietnam. if you do it smartly and you're willing to make hard, strategic choices you could at the end of this come out better positioned with a military that is smaller in some areas but stronger in the areas that are most important. you have to make cuts that are not fair and balanced. you have to make cuts that are strategically informed. and you have to make cuts that might anger constituents.
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>> >> i did not look at that. i cannot say. it could be slightly higher. it would be proportionately deeper than other areas in the nondefense discretionary budget. >> ducey congress being more open this year than last year -- do you see congress of being more open this year than last year? what has changed that is different this year? >> if we run into another real crisis like we have looming right now, that might change people's minds. the other thing that has changes that we are not in an election. this might be a good year to have a serious discussion.
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>> if they did this, they have to do this and that. all of this is completely self- imposed. if congress decides by a majority vote, they can change the caps and the debt limit. congress could say, let's double the budget and do by raising taxes or whatever. this is nothing against the 14th amendment. congress have discretion and how to solve the problem any time. >> absolutely. all of this is artificially imposed, but it is the law and it is binding. congress could come back
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absolutely. it can change any part that they wanted. they have set the own rules and they make their own rules. these are the rules they have made. i think the trouble is getting some sort of change to this that people on both sides of the aisle will agree to insufficient numbers to make it pass. >> senator hagel is likely to be confirmed on march 1. can he do anything? [indiscernible] >> i do not know that are is a lot that whoever it is at that time can really do. other than try to be
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straightforward and open with congress and the american people about what the real impacts would be and not just talking points, but coming out with what the impacts would be. let the people make an informed decision on what is best for the country. that is about the best that any defense can do in any situation. i want to go on. my last slide before we close is to put all of this together. in the next few months, i think it is madness. we're looking at late february and early march, the treasury says that they will be running out of options to avoid reaching the debt ceiling. if congress does nothing to increase the debt ceiling by then, we could be looking at a government default. even if it is not a default on our debt and the treasury says they will prioritize interest on payments, we're still looking at at a default under
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government obligation. that means the treasury and the government would have the ability to go out and spend money and the treasure would not have the checks to pay. that could include dod civilian, uniform civilians, contractors. they would expect a check and it would not show up. that would be true for the non- defense parts of the budget as well. doctors expecting a reimbursement. that is if we go into a default situation. that is a major threat to our economy. i argue that it is a threat to our national defense. every major war the united states has fought has been financed in part through
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borrowing. by going into a default and not being able to pay our obligations for the first time in history, we will put at risk the full faith and credit of the united states government. the treasury has said this. major economists have said this. if you did that, not only would you increase our borrowing rate, but it in a future crisis, we simply may not be able to borrow sufficient funds to get us through. that is a national security risk. the other big happening is sequestration going into effect unless congress do something to change it. then on march 27, the continuing resolutions currently will expire. it is important to note, government shutdown is fundamentally different than a default or sequestration.
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under default, government continues to operate at normal, we just cannot pay the bills. under sequestration, everything is slowed down. defense would be about 9%. under government shutdown, all work stops. we have been in a government shutdown multiple times in the 1990s. we know what to expect from that. sequestration, we had that happen in that 1980s. we know what to expect from that. government default, we are going into uncharted territory. we have set up self-imposed deadlines where if congress does not act, if they do not pass legislation in the house or in the senate and get the white house's signature, we could face all of these things happening at the same time within a period of about a month.
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that is march madness. i hope we can avoid it. sequestration is part of that. the deadline of march 1, the new deadline, it is implicitly ties any resolution of sequestration to the debt ceiling debate. some in congress have said that for every dollar increase in the debt ceiling, we want a dollar in spending cuts. sequestration is a result of that philosophy the last time we hit the ceiling. they wanted spending cuts equal to the raise in that that ceiling. congress could not agree. that is why they came up with sequestration. sequestration cuts are cut left over from the previous debt ceiling increase. now we are facing another moment where the debt ceiling needs to be increased. if you want to increase it to
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give us a year of operating time, that would be about 3 trillion dollars. putting these on the same timeline doubles the problem. i'm not confident that congress can come up with another 2 trillion dollars in deficit reduction by that deadline. with the fiscal cliff, relative to what would have happened if all of those programs had been extended, what they ended up passing reduce the deficit by less than one trillion dollars. look at how hard that was to achieve. less than one trillion dollars.
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over an hour.
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it is the first time i have ever been to montgomery, so i greatly appreciate the invitation. general cleveland is nothing if not persistent in coming after speakers. the first time he called me, i was in afghanistan, he wondered why i could come back here to do this. being a distinguished graduate of the u.s. military academy class of 1949, an ace during t korean war, and to think it was 60 years ago last september, if i get the history right, at general cleveland became an ace, it is truly remarkable, so please join me in thanking him for his service. [applause]
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i also appreciate them recognizing my father as a member of the reagan administration. when i teach at west point, they think the reagan ministration was sometimes after the taft administration, so people who recognize the name of edwin meese iii, it is great to be here, and i appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to come here and be better informed about what our nation is doing with regard to combating terrorism and what we are doing as a people and as a military, and where that is going. i will tell you a little bit about that. i want to say for all of you and especially for c-span that these are my personal academic opinions and not those of the
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united states government. as you will hear, it should be the position of united states government. [laughter] i come to this audience with a bit of trepidation. there are so many people who pay attention to these issues that i have to remain humble in these circumstances, and when i do that, i begin by telling myself the story, which is a true story, about the u.s.s. abraham lincoln and canadian authorities off the coast of newfoundland in 1995. here is how the radio communication took place. the u.s. said on the radio, "please divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avert collision." canadians responded, "negative, you divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid the collision." "this is the captain of the u.s. navy warship. divert your course to 15 degrees to the south." canadians responded, "no, you divert your course 15 degrees to the north."
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"this is the aircraft carrier u.s.s. lincoln, the second largest in the atlantic fleet. we are accompanied by numerous support vessels. i demand you divert your course 15 degrees to the south, or countermeasures will be taken." "this is a lighthouse. your call." [laughter] i will remain humble and not be too arrogant as i give you some thoughts about terrorism, and what i thought i would do is let you know what we have done at west point. it is the follow on to that with the combaing terrorism center at we point, and the second part is to tell you about what we teach cadets with regard to iraq, where i have spen12 months on three different tours, and talk about afghanistan, where i just came back last summer, spent from the
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summer of 2010 and the summer of 2011 in afghanistan, and then talk a little bit about the way forward with regard to national security. i will try to leave plenty of time for questions and look forward to your questions at the end. when the world trade towers collapsed on 9/11, it was 45 miles south in new york city. i was teaching a class at the time, and we had a scheduled briefing by the deanf the academic ward from the west point class of 1968. he was supposed to speak about what they were going to major in, and it got all the sophomores and an auditorium that holds 1,100 cadets, and it was 12:30 right after lunch on 9/11, and he said, events like this is when the military and the army go into action and get
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things done. and that is whate have had to wrestle with at westoint, of what you do, how do you change the curriculum, what do you do to prepare the young men and women at west point that are going to have the awesome responsibility of leading soldiers in combat during a period of violence in which we were not sure about? when we looked around at this, literally the next couple of nights, several of us went down to new york cityo help with recovery efforts at ground zero, and one of our graduates from the class of 1977, who was the head of the american mercantile exchange, said, we ought to study this at west point to better prepare the cadets. so we took a look at various histories and what we wanted to do, and we were reassured by these words from a president.
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when we saw the challenges of an ideologically driven hatred that would be with us for a generation, and then we realized that we had done this before and that these were at the time not the words of president bush, but the words of president eisenhower when he was talking about communism. and throughout the cold war, we had in most universities, here alabama and throughout the united states, soviet studies departments and entire fields of professors that were looking at communism. but we did not have a similar set of people that were studying the radical islamist salafi jihadi ideology within our universities in generalnd especially not at west point or within the military. so we thought there needed to be an important linkage, and so we came up with a vision that you can see on this slide to look at the intellectual and strategic issues.
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of course, the united states government has a very sophisticated intelligence apparatus that does an excellent job with many professionals in washington and throughout the world. they're very good at analyzing intelligence, very good at providing information up to decision makers. but there was not really a linkage between a lot of the strategic study that was happening in colleges and universities, many in near east studies departments and others, and the military. what we found was west point was in a unique position because in a nse, similar to the area universities.
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it is both a dot-mil and a dot- edu. we were able to bring academics down from the ivory towers. thucydides said, "a nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its laws made by cowards and its wars fought by fools." our purpose was to put together an organization that could link together the best two aspects of the united states, the best we are in the world at, the best military and the best academics, to be able to address the critical issues of terrorism. so we came up with a mission to have the center educate, advise, and conduct research to
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provide information, both for current leaders and the future leaders, the cadets that we are teaching, about the current and future threats of terrorism. we do that to educate cadets, through doing research, and actually a limited part of what we do is policy analysis, because thprofessionals in washington concentrate on policy and analysis do that and much more rapid fashion than we do up at west point, but is still an important part that is derived from a lot of the things that we do. when the first and most important thing that we do every day is teach cadets, and we concentrate on providing that education in a rigorous curriculum that is designed for every cadet at west point that we have integrated into the ss307 international relations course, so ty understand the roots of terrorism and that some of the counter-terrorism
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actions that are taken by our nation so that every cadet gets that. in addition to the core instruction that is taught to every cadet, we created the first minor in terrorism studies. in addition to taking civil engineering, arabic, or economics, they can get a minor in terrorism studies where they take five courses that focus on terrorism, homeland security, and related courses, and then are able to focus that in their particular area to prepare them for their lifetime service in the army. as we developed this curriculum and publhed text books and published articles, all we found that others were
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interested in what we were doing, and so the assistant director of the fbi for counter- terrorism came to west point and said the fbi could benefit from this kind of education as well. and so they asked west point to and expand our education for cadets to what we now call practitioner education. we send people from west point and combating terrorism center down to quantico, virginia, to the fbi academy, and they teach each new agent and new analyst instruction on terrorism to reinforce the kinds of things that are taught at the fbi academy. to come here and be informed about what we are doing to counter terrorism and where that is going.
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i'll tell you a little bit aut that. i do want to state for all of you and especially for c-span these are my personal academic opinions and not the position of the united states government so they have that disclaimer out there. although, as you'll hear as i'm talking about it, i think it should be the position of the united states government.
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enemies and far enemies by looking at the research and documenting what they are saying amg and between each other, and it gives us important insight. the second thing we combine that with is what is known as the database. it is maintained by the defense intelligence agency in washington and it consists of all of the captured battlefield documents. american and other persons pick up on the battlefield. they get put into this electronic database. it is a very useful database for the intelligence agencies. these are all things captured from the battlefield from the terrorists themselve once forces have gone through and found out whether or not
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there is immediate targeting of value, it goes into this large database. one of the values of having -- not only cannot hire people with master's degrees and a ph.d. is, i can also get them security clearances so they can access these databases and request the declassification of many othese documents. . you can combine it with literature they're putting on the web with the scholarly journals that are out there and we can learn a lot more about what is happening within terrorism. that is what we teach to our
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cadets every day. but i will do is reflect those as i talk about iraq and afghanistan and tell you a little bit about some of lessons that we've learned from iraq and afghanistan because frequently although we've been involved in those conflicts for over a decade now, often many of the details are not sufficiently covered which we will not correct by covenants on c-span. frequently, the media, when you turn on the tv at night will be covering the kardashian failed marriage. rather than captured the very complex actions that your military has taken within iraq and afghanistan.
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think kansas and not new mexico. there is snow in afghanistan. you can see well, it's important because of the pace of history when we now withdraw all forces from afghanistan, people don't remember what has happened over the last six years. you think back six years ago to december of 2006, afghanistan was literally on fire. this map is of baghdad and each of these plots are actually incidents that took place. this is from january of 2006 to the end of 2006 with the increase of civilian deaths and increase of improvised explosive device that is took place.
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iraq was in the middle of a full blown civil war with 3,000 iraqis killing each other every single month and there was very little thought to how that was going to correct itself. and many of you may remember the political controversy that faced the bush administration at the time. the important decision that is were made at the end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007 and are now coming out in all of the books are use to feel go back and look at. it was an important decision wherpresident bush agreed with prime minister malachi the prime minister of iraq to surge 30,000 troops into iraq and 30,000 troops into baghdad to be able to address this civil war that was happening in iraq and try to keep it from becoming a much broader, much more
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dangerous, much more difficult conflict. but the important aspect at the time the three star commander over there is now the chief of staff of the army and was the core commander in charge of all the units there and general petraeus came in. what they recognized at the time was adding the additional 30,000 forces, if you did not change the tactics and the procedures at the time would probably not have worked as well. so subsequently, it was important to change three major ideas. and i'll explain those because it explains a lot of what we may be doing going in the future with regard to counterterrorism and the distinction between counterterrorism and counter insurgency.
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this was the doctrine that was developed with regard to counter insurgency. the important of it is that it address it is population and focuses instead of focusing exclusively on the enemy focuses on the population that you see there, some of which support the government, some of which are neutral or passive, and some of which are part of the insurgency. it addresses all of the aspects of the insurgency or terrorists and some people think that it's just a lot of hearts and mind stuff. all of this stability thing where we work on government and economics and services and those sorts of things, and that's important. but it's equally important to recognize that it also is critical to have offensive
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operations, and that's a lot of the counterterrorism force that is are able to capture and kill the insurgents or terrorists in the area as well as the defensive force that is protect the u.s. soldiers and the host nation soldiers, in this case in iraq, building up the host nation so that they have the force that is are sufficnt to be able to address the insurgency at the time the objective is moving left to right where you have more people supportive of the government and a much smaller insurgency that is involved.
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this theory applies to iraq and afghanistan and more badly applies to counterrrorism as we go forward in the future. the second dig distinction that took place was splitting the opposition. if you look this slide, in the center we knew we were supporting the government which included most of the people in iraq that were broadly supportive of what was happening with the malachi government, again, with some problems that happen in any kind of political situation. the distinction was on the left- hand side, you had the extremist over here, al qaeda in iraq, the islamic state of iraq, those were the extremist that had to be captured or killed. on the other extreme you had the extremist that were supported by iran, the secret cells and special groups that also had to be captured or killed as part of counterterrorism operations.
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the real question is what do you do with the people in the middle? those groups that are negotiate mpletely in the insurgents camp or the government camp. this is one of the key changes that is referred to as the end bar awakening. a man came to him and said look, we're tired of the taliban forcing us to follow them, not letting us do our normal trucking businesses, forcing our women into forced marriages, not allowing people or chopping off their fingers if they're caught smoking, we will stop oosing you if you'll allow us to be part of the defense of iraq.
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anin fact, this is how the program called the sons of iraq was created which resulted in 103,000 men that had been opposing the regime to put down their weapons and get enrolled and included fingerprints and face shots and iris scans so you could identify them if they turned up involved in other northeast fares things and was an important way of reducing the number of terrorist that is you had to go after. as many leaders have testified before congress, general petraeus and many others we're not going to kill our way out of this war. it has a lot to do with information anit has to do with people being reconciled to their government.
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so this was the second important idea. the third critical idea that we did was to make sure to communicate that. and many of you probably remember the unprecedented congressional testimony in front of the house armed services committee and foreign relations committee and the senate foreign relations committees where general petraeus testified for seemed like 19 hours straight. because it was important to communicate this to the american people as well as to the congress of the united states which at the time included four presidential candidates, at the senator clinton, senator biden, senator mccain and senator obama. and what was being challenged at the time, you may remember the advertisement that said that general petraeus was being fast and loose with statistics. and let me show you what those statistics were. these are the total amount of violent incidents in iraq from
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2004 all the way up to 010. and when the insurgents started the psyches of violence it went up substantially and the question is whether this was a reduction in violence preceding the testimony or whether general petraeus was making that up. he wasn't making that up and we didn't kn it at the time but here is what ended up happening. over the past five years, with the effectiveness of the surge and especially the building up of the iraq security forces to be able to handle the violence that was taking place in iraq, to isolate and eliminate the surgency, they were able to bring iraq down to the level of violence that could be handled locally.
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another important decision, i meioned the first one made by president busho have the surge, the second was made by president obama shortly after he came into office. you may remember he said his proposals to do a responsible with drawl of forces from iraq which was initially thought of as pulling all the forces out in 16 months. after consulting with his advisors president obama decided to whdraw instead of the rapid line there, to go down to 50,000 troops in 19 months and then to withdraw all of the forces by the end of 2011 which was part of the agreement that president bush had established. that became particularly important for the iraq government to be able to stabilize after the elections and be able to deal with circumstances that are on the ground. again, iraq is not the place i would spend my next anniversary vacation.
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but you should be proud and note the work that has been done by putting together a counterterrorism strategy. we contributed i think in a small part to that at the combating terrorism center by these documents and exposing what was actually happening there in iraq. a special forces group seized the human resources command essentially of al qaeda and iraq with the sin jar records. and they ended up identifying all of the foreign fighters in iraq. well when we published this report that you see on the left a bright news week reporter went back to the main city in libya where most of these foreign fighters came from and talked to people in that town to find out why they created so many foreign fighters.
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and in fact the combating terrorism center published all of them on the web so these are the actual pictures of the fighters. as a result of this it became a cover story for news week all across the middle east and pointed out the terrorists and how they duped a lot of the people to go and fight forhem and as a result the number of foreign fighters coming into iraq slowed down from over 100 a month to just a handful each missouri that come bind with the operation that is were taking place. again it reinforces the important point that terrorists will appeal to any kind of tendency they can to get recruits but once they are
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exposed, the line of recruiting will dwindle. we'll go through afghanistan because that is in the news this week with president karzai coming to washington to meet with people in the defense department and president obama. obviously afghanistan is vitally important as well being the source of the 9/11 attacks as well as being in between pakistan and i ran both of which arproblem mats i can 23r9 united states. what people may not recognize -- there were actually no u.s. force there is until president obama gave his speech on the first of december 2009 at west point where there will be a surge of 30,000 troops many of whom went to this area of kandahar and this area of hellman both army troops and marines to be able to address the terrorist threat. again, they did a comprehensive approach as understand iraq and
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here are the graphs that are relatively similar to those that i showed you. the difference is from 2008 to 2012 in afghanistan, in afghanistan the fighting is mostly in the summ, these are the summers of 2008 to the beginning of 2012 where you see a decrease in the actual year over year violence in afghanistan through the application of both the american military forces, our allied military forces and especially the build up of the afghanistan security forces. in a little bit more detail what people here in the united states frequently don't realize is that the united states has been leading a coalition of 49 other nation that is are in afghanistan. so this really is the world's main efforts.
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in fact, three of the divisions the most violent areas are commanded by americans, but three of the other regional commands are commanded by a turkish general, by a german general in the north and by an italian general out on the western border with iran. so these come bind forces have been effective in addressing many of the issues in afghanistan. now again, none of them provide a knock out blow. a lot ofhe discussion will continue to take place in washington over thnext several days about what e future is going to be. and you hear lots of press reports about what will happen from now to 2014 which is when
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nato has said that all of the combat missions in afghanistan will end and part of the discussion that will take place in washington which we can address in questions and answers is what will remain there as we continue to have a very important part of the u.s. strategy. but what we've learned is that this was an opportunity for many terrorists organizations to be able to leverage the weakness of the state of afghanistan to operate there, both their legal activities you see on the left- hand side of the slide as well as their illegal activities there on the right in which they extort money. one of the most noteworthy networks that we've written about is the hi canny network and our study of the network we sent people over to afghanistan that went with many of the counterterrorism forces that were going after them,
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documented what they were doing in terms of undermining the state in afghanistan, in terms of trying to have spectacular attacks that got a lot of press but didn't do lot of damage and put that together in an academic report. that report as well as study led to the united states declaring the terrorist network being on the treasuries financing list so that nobody can do business with that network which allows them -- prevents them from doing a lot of the action that is they wereaking. another report we did was on the deadly vanguards. this documented from arabic sources the fact that 94% of those killed by al qaeda were actually muslims. this got huge coverage in the arabic media.
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fact, adam ghadan, the al qaeda spokesman came out trying to refute the report. but all of the people on the web in all of the muslim web sites saw the rigorousness and saw what was really happening with al qda that they were killing many more muslims than westerners in their attacks. finally, as a result of the work we were doing, when the documents that were captured when osama bin laden was killed, the decision was made to give those documents over to the combat terrorism center where they were declassified so we could look in detail about what was happening and the state of mind of osama bin laden as he was trying to get control of al qaeda as it got more and more diffuse and more and more attacking of civilians. so in fact, probably the best credit to this and i'll play
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this jusbriefly. this is the number one person in al qaeda, at this time he was number two, that spent many of his videos and this is how they communicate. this is an actual al qaeda video. mostspeak over it because of you don't understand the arabic. he is reading and this is their video they got from our website. they've got some very good video people there in al qaeda and talked about the challenge that is we were presenting to them. as i tell my cadets, if the number one guy in al qaeda is reading our stuff, you should read your homework too. so with that, i can talk more in detail about the future of counterterrorism. begeneral, it's going to with a lot less money.
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as you can see this is the federal budget. most of the federal budg is on entitlements, but the largest part of the discretionary budget is in defense. that is going to continue to be reduced. this has gone down from half of the federal budget to 20% of the federal budget so as president obama met with the defense leaders a year ago this january, he talked about the defense strategy moving forward. again, i want to leave plenty of time for questions and answers. but briefly talked a lot about leveraging as we're down sizing, leveraging the people, probably having fewer people ashe army and marine corps are cutting down, maintaining our dominance in critical areas like sea, space and cyberspace. but continuing to engage in
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shaping operations with regard to combating terrorism, recogzing that we're not going to be able kill our way out of this but it's going to be a combination of all the aspects of power and others that are going after the terrorists networks. we see this in the operations that have taken place throughout the middle east, in the philippines. and various parts of africa and becomes an important part of what we're doing. the final slide that i'll show you is of remington's stampede portrait. rember inc. on the stampede is what we talk to our cadets about, about the challenges of the uncertainty they will be facing as soldiers in a counterterrorism environment. it shows this environment they are facing is not precise and orally. the leader they have to be is
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exemplified by the stampede and the circumstances ar frequently confusing. the rain is blowing sideways, there is dark and ominous clouds and seems like it's getting barely brighter as he goes forward. some of the parts of the organization are way ahead and some may or may not catch up. honor to be able to teach the cadets that are there that are understaing more and more of what they have to confront with regard to terrorism and that task. last summer my son happened to
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be graduating with the class of 2012. the class of 2012 picked for their class motto for more than ourselves. i think that that reflects the generation of young men and young women that are coming to the military academy at west point and all of the other service academies or enlisting in the military services. they are the best that our nation has to offer and it has been our pleasure at west point to be able to educate them. i hope that i've conveyed to you a little bit of what we talked to them about and what we're doing in the combating terrorism center. thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible]
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>> yes. >> i would like your take on the advantages of the -- [indiscernible] what do you forsee as the way that the issue of narcotics will
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unfold in the next few years? >> just to restate the question in case it did not come through, the challenge of narcotics and drugs in the way forward. it is in fact, a critical issue and a huge problem because drugs are one of the largest industries, if you will, in afghanistan. there have been varies attempts on drugs -- at eradicate itself of pot fields. in general, these are my personal observations not necessarily those of government officials, most of the drugs ratification programs imposed by outside forces are usually not very effective. the reason they are not very effective is because if you're just eradicating poppy fields you a getting upset farmers who are the people you are
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trying to win on your side with regard to counterinsurgency. on the other hand, to have a program with alternative crops, replacing poppies with other kind of crops that can be legally grown, even though they don't have the profi margins subsiding that seems to be effective. the only thing that has worked, last year in april of 2011 was an operation that was going after the producers after they paid for the narcotics before it got transported out of afghanistan. so you're targeting the people
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who are purchasing it and that can be done in a much more focused area. also focusing on the precursor chemicals that are necessary to convert the poppy into narcotics has also been important. it is something that the afghan government is trying to address. they do have a counter narcotics program. it has had mixed results and it is going to continue to be a problem. it really has to be something that has to be addressed both within afghanistan and internationally. cerinly from the western previous -- perspective reducing the price of drugs would be a huge contribuon as well. >> the chief council has been asking when the war will be mo or less ended and when title x
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authority will be removed and replaced with alesser authority. do you see a day that will come? >> i think that -- good question. jay johnson who was the general council who commented about when the authorities would change because we've been conducting, again, armed conflict against armed terrorists. i think it will be different in different spaces and different areas. whether you are dealing with ungoverned spaces in parts of africa, yemen, afghanistan, in the philippines and each of those have to have a different -- the national command
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authority, the president, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state and intelligence officials have to have the flexibility to use the appropriate tool with the appropriate reporting procedures back to congress and all of us as the american people. i think there will be probably some aspect of counterterrorism that continues to be carried out for a long period of time. again, the president can also constrain what areas and what places those forces are going to be while still being able to operate under the other kinds of authorities, the law enforcement authorities would take place. the fact that we continue to have ongoing threats against the united states, the fact that we have people who are trying to come into this country and trying to radicalize others both here as well as europe it
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means it will be a problem, i think for the future. todoesn't mean you're going have title 10 operations across the world but i ink there will still be a need for authorities to be able to -- to exercise by the secretary of defense and the president and others. >> i am the director at am and also the founder of cyber security department. my question is on cyber warfare. what is being planned ahead since our new decade is now already busy with cyber warfare and i have not heard you nmentoin that. i am su lots is being done. the students we are educated are
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anxious to know if there are job opportunities for them. >> if you aradvising your students i think cyber -- the question was what the future of cyber and cyber terrorism is. i think there will be more tons with regard to offense, defense, and putting together a network of people that are involved. the secretary of the army has established a center, the army cyber center at west point that is going to focus on cyber, maybe you can get the director of that to come down next year to talk about it. but as we have looked at this, it is going to be different from the kinds of things i talked about.
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it is public with regard to governmental ahorities and very much private industry are involved and all of us have an important part to play with regard to cyber defenses. right now a lot of the legislation is being worked out, i would point you to secretary petraeus' speech that he gave in new york city. it was one of the best articulation that you have to have a partnership where you need a public/private partnership with both, the best we can bring from government and the best we can bring from private industry as well as the best practices from education. that is really where a lot of the cutting-edge developments are coming from. the other aspect of it is the threat is frequently not just from government agencies or terrorist agencies but private individuals. i'm sure you have studies the -- studied the individuals,
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could have hugely negative affects with regard to cyber. >> in trying to understand what is going on in the world, i feel like the rider in the stampede. could you recommend -- [indiscernible] -- a few trusted souces they make -- may keep up with to understand issues you deal with? >> that is a good question. i think being informed in audiences like this is kind of people you bring in is important.
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i would put an advertisement for youur own stuff. if you gto o website you can sign up there and get the c.t.c. -- in fact, here is a picture. i don't have it. it is our monthly paper tha goes and analyzes the different areas of terrorism. it is one of the sources. there are some very good journalists that are out there that are covering these. most of the top journalists from the top newspapers, like "the new york times" and "the washington post" they cover these in the fair amount of
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detail on a current basis. d many of the others cover this in more detail as well. there is a lot of information out there but with a little bit of scratching the surface you can get to more of the details. >> good evening. i would like you to speak about the counter terrorism strategies in somolia and the efforts in nigeria. thank you. >> well, the efforts in somalia -- yeah the question was how effective how are efforts been
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in the region of africa both in somalia and mali. they have been mixed. to get back to previous question, there is a magazine called "the prism" that google at the national defense university. it had an article that detail this and i'm not an expert in this area so i will fall back on others. it has said that it has been mixed but has been -- by concentrating on building up some of the local forces in mali it has been helpful in terms of national forces. that has been less successful in somalia.
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beyond that i'm not an expert in that area in particular so i would not want to go too much past that. see if there is another question. >> you said we mine internet pages. how do we know we are not being played and fed misinformation? >> good question. we're following these things reason to internet are we sure we're not being played? that is one of the reasons we do this in an academic and rigorous way. we publish all of our results. when we get downloaded documents we' right a 150-page report then we will publish those documents in english and area big. we'll invite scholars to read that and see if we're getting the story right or if we're getting played and we have it wrong.
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it is the rigger th we put behind it. we have everybody looking at these sorts of things to see if -- if we're just looking at a website, we don't write things on a daily basis or hitting a newspaper's person deadline. but we look at this and we want to make sure we don't take it out of context so we combine it with other literature written out there. could we get some of this stuff wrong? we possibly could but hopefully it will be pked up by others. if you make the assumption that the truth is on our side and more information is better and getting that information out there is critical, then you guard against being played so to speak. i would rather have the
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information get out there and told we're wrong and have the information corrected than not have the public discussion that you need on the issues. >> good evening. i am a studfent up the street. my question is on religion. how big of a role does religion play in the overall aspect of terrorism. how big of a r ole has it played in the u.s.'s policy on counterterrorism? >>the question is what is the role of religion either from the terrorist perspective or the combating counterterrorism
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perspective. from the terrorist perspective what we have mostly found is that adherence from al qaeda broadly misinterpreted and taken extremist views and perverted islam as a religion to be able to coerce and otherwise control their followers in doing things that are very much what the tenants of islam would say. we quoted a scholar and others that talked about the prohibition of killing innocent civilians. when they talk about the majority of people being killed by al qaeda are muslims contradicted the religion of islam and pointed out they were violating the tenet.
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so in general, helping to highlight the perversion of the religion in rms of the information we are doing has been helpful and that is what was done with the deadly vanguards report. it identified the problems that al qaeda was having when it was killing civilians it violates what many of the other moderate, main stream muslim scholars were saying. with regard to the counterterrorism focus, it depends upon where you are. again, it is interesting because from the united states we have separation of church and state so it doesn't play in the things that we're doing. but you are in the government of the iamic republic of
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afghanistan which is in fact, an islamic republic. so islam is an important part of the host nation that we're in afghanistan and it does influence the policies of the nations we're working with. so understandinghe religious components both on the terrorist de and the counterterrorist side is particularly important. very good question. >> i wand to hear your comments about -- i want to hear your comments about what is -- -- we have media reports of friendly fire attacks. we have had an increasing number
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of green attacks on our forces. we have had evidence that has been present that the afghans are unreliable and by our standards they are untrainable. what was your experience? >> good question. assessment of the insider threat and the afghan military. the insider threat is clearly one of the biggest challenges that we have faced. i think when people write the history of this and they go back, it started out with a very small element of insiders that were motivated by -- either people that were imitating afghan solers or afghan soldiers themselves. then the taliban realized this is a very effective tactic. so they infiltrated people and
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had them attack other afghan soldiers or they turned afghan soldiers to be able to attack the military. it is early one of the most significant, negative developments over the last year. my recollection is there have been about 60 attacks over the last year. many, many additional procedures, counter intelligence sort of things to weed out people and all the procedures that can be taken to protect soldiers are being taken. again, it is a coat environment which is extremely difficult to be able to deal with.
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now, with regard to the effectiveness of the afghan forces, by our standards, it is difficult to assess them at any measurable lev. it is one of the things to guard against is the mirror image that will they have to be as successful as nato forces or u.s. forces at any particular point. the afghan forces and when you look in detail at many of the reports, many of them with some assistance are able to conduct combat operations. a recent report in december talked about the varies readiness of afghan military units and afghan police units. both had expanded in capacity
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but they still have a long ways to go. they are out there tragically fighting and dying for their own country at a much, much larger rate than the u.s. many of them are doing a good job, but again, the results depend from unit to unit and area to area. a couple of good examples when they had spectacular attacks, i was there in ail of 2012 when there was a big attack. those were entirely done by the afghan special police units they are going responded and they responded very effectively killing 43 counterinsurgents. it got lot of press but they did demonstrate they had the capacity. you have to look in detail at what is happening in each circumstance.
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i think we're about at the end of the time. sir? go ahead. >> [indiscernible] [applause] >> thank you, sir. >> our guests are david doniger and myron ebell.
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dam it will talk about centers investigating the cia sources -- then we will talk about investigators. a look at the fda new food safety rules. we are joined by sarah kline. washington john alive at 7:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span -- journal live at 7:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span. >> a chance at a grand prize of $5,000. $50,000 in total prices. for more details, go to studenca,.org. >> after a president hamid karzai doggett george ty university.
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-- afghan president hamid karzai talked at georgetown university. he took questions from the audience. this is about 40 minutes. >> good evening, everyone. welcome to our distinguished guests from all around the world, especially afghanistan, our faculty, students, colleagues and friends. the u.s. afghan women's council at georgetown university is so delighted to co-host tonight's event.
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this dynamic council a private partnership with members from abroad array of sectors who seek to advance the role of women and children in afghan society. they have invested heavily in the society in health, education, and leadership. our president is one of the co- chairs of the council. it is my great pleasure to introduce him this evening. he is a scholar, advocate, and a true friend of afghanistan. [applause] >> thank you very much for that introduction and your work as vice chair of the u.s. afghan women's council.
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i wish to thank the members from the delegation from afghanistan, u.s. afghan women's council and all of our guests from around the world for joining us this evening. it is a privilege to welcome back to georgetown the president of afghanistan hamid karzai. we look forward to hearing his remark on afghanistan beyond 2014, a perspective on afghan- u.s. relations. 2014 will be an historic year for afghanistan as it will witness elections across the country and the end of u.s. and is combat operations. as president obama, secretary of state clinton and many of this room have emphasized this transition provides us with the opportunity for diplomatic and
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cultural relations between our peoples. at georgetown, we are proud to be a part of this critical work notably through the u.s. afghan women's council. the council is a public private partnership that has been housed here at the university since 2008. it was founded in 2002 by president karzai and president bush in support of afghan women and children. it's focused its work of areas of education, health, economic empowerment, leadership development, and humanitarian assistance. since its founding the council has created call leadership, provided skills training, literacy and health care, established a burn center to treat victims and provide reconstructive surgery and provide leadership training for
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afghan women. in recent years we have witnessed significant improvements of the lives of women and children throughout afghanistan. educational opportunities for all children, including girls have increased. improvements have been made in the area of maternal and child health with the maternal mortality rate drops to 460 today. many advancements have been realized with 90% of afghanistan cover bid the four main telecom providers. we wish to make sure these are
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sustained, built upon and expanded in the future and we recognize more must be done and we look forward to working with our partners in the public and private sector to continue to see improvements in the lives of afghan women and children and the afghan people as a whole. as co-chair of the council i wish to invite each of you in this room to become involved in our common work. tonight, here our work continues. we have the opportunity to talk to the leader and hear his thoughts on the future of his country, his people, and afghan- u.s. relations. as the university and in tradition we believe in the power of discourse and dialogue to bring us to a greater understanding of one another, of our shared world, and our work together.
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we will look forward to the dialogue that tonight's program will inspire in the weeks and months ahead. ladies and gentlemen, it is my privilege to welcome to the podium the president of afghanistan hamid karzai. [applause] >> please. thank you very much. please. this is my second time in this lovely hall. the first time was quite a few years ago and when i was very popular in the u.s.
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the second time is more real time. this university is also the one that has honored me with an honorary doctrine and i thank you once again for that. it is hanging in my living room with expectation that my son one day will be studying here. so i keep telling him georgetown university. but ladies and gentlemen, the journey we began together in 2001 that is afghanistan and the united states.
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it was for a great cause. freeing civilians from terrorism and radicalism, little bitter rating afghanistan -- liberating afghanistan from an invasion and a rule by the taliban. the first one, in reverse order, the first one freeing afghanistan happened within a month and a half to two months. subsequent of that afghanistan began its journey towards democracy, the rule of law, progress in all aspects of life.
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it went all right. it went reasonably good under the circumstances. without a doubt with the help of the united states and our other allies around the world. the second part, freeing us all from terrorism and radicalism, didn't work as swiftly as we expected. there was bumps along the road and setbacks. now, the afghan people regardless where they stand recognize that afghanistan could not have made the progress that we have made in the past 10 years without the help we received from our allies.
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led by the united states of america. in more cruder terms the u.s. taxpayer's money. it contributed to afghanistan's upliftment. it contributed to the workplace, to society, to policy, the return of young girls to education. the return of universities,
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roads, communications, mobile phones, computers, all of that. [laughter] mobile phone wasn't a joke. i meant it. in 2001, we barely had telephones. my office was given a few walkie-talkie that was our form of communication we had. today, the population of nearly 30 million has telephone available to 18 million.
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not one, two, or three companies but many more, four or five and they own them all. so the country has made progress. now, the war on terror has been costly. it has been costly to you in america, so many of your men and women in uniform has lost life. it has been costly to our allies. it also has been costly massively to the afghan people. we have lost in the past 10 years tens of thousands of civilians to violence. this year alone, i mean, last year this year has just begun, each month we lost 250 of our servicemen and women to terrorism and nearly 450 casualties in our villages each month.
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so the cost has been immense. therefore, there are complaints on both sides. it has been a difficult journey. a journey at which at times expectations are not met. when that doesn't happen both sides complain. i'm aware of the complaints in your media. you're aware of my complaints. but the journey continued, the relationship continued. afghanistan would always be better off in close contact and partnership with the united states.
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that is why last year will be convened afghan or the grand council, the afghan voted for partnership with the united states. they voted for a partnership with the united states and a sovereign country. and excepting that sovereignty will be respected by our allies. today, i'm glad to report to you, ladies and gentlemen that asked, the afghans and the united states government agreed upon a format for expanding our relationship into the bilateral security agreement. by which, the united states will reduce its forces in afghanistan, will stay beyond
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2014 in a limited number, in certain facilities in afghanistan and the united states will continue to train and assist afghanistan and afghanistan will be responsible for its own security and protection of its own boards and all that comes with it. so is the future certainly good for us? does it have dangers on its way? are we certain to move forward? will this partnership work? yes. what you hear in segments or the various bodies informing you on events in afghanistan, the media.
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if i watched television in the united states or in europe and just judged afghanistan from that perspective it would be a disaster. i would lose all hope. but if i came from afghanistan with all the traffic jams there and all the pollution there now and tall phones ringing there, with all the television channels there, we all the hustle and bustle of life and the young people going to education, studying, working, and making life move forward.
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i would give you a different perspective. i would say afghanistan is definitely moving in the right direction. 2014 will be a good year for us. and the year after will be even better and this country will have its third presidential elections. in a year and few months i will be a retired president. there will be a new president elected by the afghan people. the economy will move further it has been growing at 8% to 9%. in 10 years from a mere $180 per capita we're looking at $600 to $700 million. today, we're talking -- i don't

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